Well, you asked, let's see if I can avoid boring you. I bet you don't get to the end of this without falling asleep, Skittles!
Religion covers several sets of beliefs, none of which are very compatible with each other. They all describe the same world, but they interpret the cause of what happens differently.
There are nature religions, such as the native Americans practiced. Wicca is quite like that. Anything that talks of the Earth-Mother. They see an inter-connectedness between all things, they feel your mind shares thoughts with other minds, that all things have a level at which they are conscious. Mystical stuff. Shamen understand and interpret to the rest of the community.
There are magic religions, quite common in Africa. If you know the principles of cause and effect, you can do something that changes the life of the person you're acting on. There's no good or bad, just power and influence.
There are religions with many aspects of God being seen as different powers - the Gods. Norse, Greek, Roman, Hindu. You get tales of the Creator, the Sustainer and the Destroyer as the great Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with their uncounted minor manifestations like Agni, God of Fire, or Ganesh, Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. I think of these as primarily story-religions though I have no doubt that their worshippers are as fervent as anyone else's.
There are religions with no God at all, like Buddhism, which explores the real world with just as complex and rich an understanding as religions with a God or Gods.
Lastly, there's what you've been brought up near to, the Abrahamic faiths, and each of this group of religions is very compatible with each other. These are Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism, and they all have a single God - the same God - who chose a people - different people, eventually - as His own. The Jews and Christians take the first five Books of the Old Testament as a description of God doing the choosing, and telling the people how to behave. The Koran tells Muslims what happened after that. The New Testament tells Christians a different history, in which the words God, only Son, sacrifice, remission of sins, New Deal and grace figure prominently. The angelic revelation to an American, Joseph Smith, informed Mormonism and gave the USA an Abrahamic religion all of its own.
For the first thousand years, all Christians were prepared to share their central religious observance, the Mass or Communion. Anyone who tried to change the core belief of the community - by saying, for example, that people weren't inherently sinful, or that a person could become holy by his own efforts - was called a Heretic and persuaded otherwise or expelled from the religion. The appearance of Islam after the first six hundred years did a lot to tie Christianity together in that way.
Eventually, a heresy happened that wasn't one small group against a big group, it was half and half. Nobody could settle the truth. It was so minimal a quarrel that neither you nor I would even understand why they argued, but they ended up refusing to share each other's core service of worship. They're still split. One's called Orthodox Christianity and the other is called Western Christianity.
Five hundred years ago, Western Christianity split half-and-half again, into Roman Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity.
Every year since then, some congregation of Protestant Christians has given themselves a new label like Baptist, or Anglican, or Pentecostal, or Methodist, but (now, at least) they share communion, they're splinters of Protestantism but they're not totally separated from each other. Some of them, like the Anglicans, refuse to even call themselves Protestant, they say they're all that remains of Catholic Christianity and that Roman Catholics are Heretics. Hair still rises on the necks of a lot of these people when they enter the same room.
Do you see a pattern in all this?
All of the Christian churches, without exception, are trying hard to find a way to get back to sharing their communion with all of the other Christian churches. Don't hold your breath, though. Nobody is even started on bringing all of the Abrahamic faiths to a point where they can share a core belief without arguing.
Is it just me??
Is it just me??
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
skittles2004 wrote: Wow. How much i didnt know.You said a while back that you can't get to any other church to see what it's like. Why not ask your Minister whether he is doing anything Ecumenical - that means bringing the Christian churches closer together and more co-operative - and that you'd like to help do that locally. It should make for an interesting half hour, and you might end up being sent around the other churches to discuss it.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
skittles2004 wrote: Hmm, i don't know what he'd say about that! It's pretty far out stuff!I'm not so sure. Maybe you just don't get to hear about what your church is doing?
“Through a new openness to ecumenism, the dynamism and energy of Pentecostalism can significantly enrich the search for unity among Christian churches,†said Kobia after meeting with a group of bishops and pastors representing Chilean Pentecostal churches.That's an example, from http://news.spirithit.com/index/south_a ... _movement/ - the Pentecostal Church is right there in the heart of bringing the Christian Churches back into a single family again.
I'm going to guess - I think what your church believes is shown on http://www.upci.org/doctrine/
Some of those ideas aren't emphasised in other Christian churches. That's why a Church with Pentecostal values can add to the excitement of other local churches, give them a new idealism, help them to go out into the community and bring back the ignorant and the confused into the ways of God.
You don't think your Minister would go for that sort of notion? It might get you out to see how other churches behave, if he did. How could any church say no to a member who asks to be allowed to discuss ecumenism with the surrounding churches?
“Through a new openness to ecumenism, the dynamism and energy of Pentecostalism can significantly enrich the search for unity among Christian churches,†said Kobia after meeting with a group of bishops and pastors representing Chilean Pentecostal churches.That's an example, from http://news.spirithit.com/index/south_a ... _movement/ - the Pentecostal Church is right there in the heart of bringing the Christian Churches back into a single family again.
I'm going to guess - I think what your church believes is shown on http://www.upci.org/doctrine/
Some of those ideas aren't emphasised in other Christian churches. That's why a Church with Pentecostal values can add to the excitement of other local churches, give them a new idealism, help them to go out into the community and bring back the ignorant and the confused into the ways of God.
You don't think your Minister would go for that sort of notion? It might get you out to see how other churches behave, if he did. How could any church say no to a member who asks to be allowed to discuss ecumenism with the surrounding churches?
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
skittles2004 wrote: I've never even hear of that till now! what makes you think he has??/He had to pass EXAMS to be a Minister, Skittles! I bet he even gets a Pentecostal Magazine once a month!
Besides, if you've read up on it and you know enough to hold a serious ecumenical conversation, think how surprised you'd make him. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, he was taught that at college.
Besides, if you've read up on it and you know enough to hold a serious ecumenical conversation, think how surprised you'd make him. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, he was taught that at college.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
skittles2004 wrote: All right. I'll research it, study it use the whole minester thing against him. i'm sure he would at least let me state something about it!He might even give you his pulpit for ten minutes one Sunday, if you get interested. Then you can tell the whole congregation.
Anything you need to know while you're researching, this is a good place to ask.
Anything you need to know while you're researching, this is a good place to ask.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
Spot :-6
Not bad, not bad. Good set of posts.
As an Anglican I would like to correct one thing. We don't think that the RC's are heretical etc. Actually anyone who is a baptized Christian is welcome at an Anglican Eucharist. It is the RCs and the Eastern Orthodox that have problems with that. Much of our service is close to the RC service but we do not place any great emphasis on the Saints or the Virgin Mary. We do venerate both as being great Christians and part of the company of the saints that we will presumably be invited to a banquet with at some future date after the Parousia.
I think there is another wrinkle that you may have overlooked but it is rather new so may not be part of your vocabulary. The theists believe that God is "Father God" who lives or is out there somewhere in heaven. There is a dualism; We here and God out their.
The second is panentheist (not pantheist). This position is that God is not out there somewhere but in fact here among and within us. I believe it was Paul who said "God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being." This implies that we are within God and that He is within us. To some it might seem trivial but to others they see it as a major difference. My own personal position is Panentheistic. This is seen as a unity position.
Shalom
Ted :-6
Not bad, not bad. Good set of posts.
As an Anglican I would like to correct one thing. We don't think that the RC's are heretical etc. Actually anyone who is a baptized Christian is welcome at an Anglican Eucharist. It is the RCs and the Eastern Orthodox that have problems with that. Much of our service is close to the RC service but we do not place any great emphasis on the Saints or the Virgin Mary. We do venerate both as being great Christians and part of the company of the saints that we will presumably be invited to a banquet with at some future date after the Parousia.
I think there is another wrinkle that you may have overlooked but it is rather new so may not be part of your vocabulary. The theists believe that God is "Father God" who lives or is out there somewhere in heaven. There is a dualism; We here and God out their.
The second is panentheist (not pantheist). This position is that God is not out there somewhere but in fact here among and within us. I believe it was Paul who said "God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being." This implies that we are within God and that He is within us. To some it might seem trivial but to others they see it as a major difference. My own personal position is Panentheistic. This is seen as a unity position.
Shalom
Ted :-6
Is it just me??
Thank you Ted. I fall into the "God is within you" category too, I'm not sure how anyone can do other than that these days. But perhaps that's just a lack of imagination on my part.
As for Anglicans - let me remember not that long ago, at an ecumenical planning meeting I attended, where the Anglican present invited "the Christians and the Roman Catholics" to his next prayer meeting. I agree, though - heresy is too strong a word. Tainted, though, might still apply in their thought processes. The Anglicans have retained the Apostolic Succession while the Romans have lost it somewhere on the way. That, seriously, is the state of mind of many Anglicans of my acquaintance. But they've stopped refering very often to the Pope, dismissively, as "The Bishop of Rome". "The Antichrist", as he was known here for centuries, is still a common epithet in Northern Ireland.
As for Anglicans - let me remember not that long ago, at an ecumenical planning meeting I attended, where the Anglican present invited "the Christians and the Roman Catholics" to his next prayer meeting. I agree, though - heresy is too strong a word. Tainted, though, might still apply in their thought processes. The Anglicans have retained the Apostolic Succession while the Romans have lost it somewhere on the way. That, seriously, is the state of mind of many Anglicans of my acquaintance. But they've stopped refering very often to the Pope, dismissively, as "The Bishop of Rome". "The Antichrist", as he was known here for centuries, is still a common epithet in Northern Ireland.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Is it just me??
Spot :-6
I would hope that those would soon disappear. The Bishop of Rome is the Bishop of Rome and as such deserves the same level of courtesy as any bishop. As far as calling him the "anti-Christ" I would hope that went out with the middle ages but alas it hasn't.
Anglicans in Canada have tried very earnestly to dialogue with the RC Church but with the (heaven forbid) ordination of women and now the same sex union issue the talks are on hold. This says nothing about the American Episcopal ordination of an openly gay Bishop. Now we're all gonna burn LOL. What absolute nonsense. I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality though I am a confirmed heterosexual if that really is anyone's business.
We're in the middle of a provincianl election here in BC so I will comment further on Anglican/RC relationshiips at another time. Got to find out who the premier is going to be.
Believe it or not we Canadians at the moment are tired of politics. I'd like to see them all take a trip to Antarctica bu then I don't wish the penguins any ill will. LOL
Shalom
Ted :-6
I would hope that those would soon disappear. The Bishop of Rome is the Bishop of Rome and as such deserves the same level of courtesy as any bishop. As far as calling him the "anti-Christ" I would hope that went out with the middle ages but alas it hasn't.
Anglicans in Canada have tried very earnestly to dialogue with the RC Church but with the (heaven forbid) ordination of women and now the same sex union issue the talks are on hold. This says nothing about the American Episcopal ordination of an openly gay Bishop. Now we're all gonna burn LOL. What absolute nonsense. I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality though I am a confirmed heterosexual if that really is anyone's business.
We're in the middle of a provincianl election here in BC so I will comment further on Anglican/RC relationshiips at another time. Got to find out who the premier is going to be.
Believe it or not we Canadians at the moment are tired of politics. I'd like to see them all take a trip to Antarctica bu then I don't wish the penguins any ill will. LOL
Shalom
Ted :-6
Is it just me??
I was raised something that sounds like "pedestrian". Now I'm inventing my own religion. Looking for volunteers as the Christ figure but the crucifixion history seems to be turning people off. :shrug: