Muhahahaha!

[WoVeU]

Lots of science is fact. I didn't mean that all science is unproven theory. Research is important and the findings of solid research shouldn't be dismissed because someone is working off of a grant. We have had lots of important findings in all areas. None of us would have ever meant on this board if it were not for science and research. What I am saying is we shouldn't take all findings at face value. We need to ask questions, look at the pros and cons and see what others are saying. Just because I say the most grass is green doesn't mean you shouldn't see for yourself. Every day someone doing research advances our way of life. Makes things better for everyone. We shouldn't just throw out the work because a grant paid for the research. I just think we tend to manipulate scientific findings to fit our opinions on things. The science may be good, but not necessarily the conclusions. I'm glad I can fly across the country in four and a half hours when needed. I'm glad someone discovered insulin so my daughter can live a reasonably long life. I am glad the someone invented a pacemaker so my mom can see her grandchildren grow up. Scientific research has had a huge impact on my life in ways I don't even think about. I don't ever want people to quit trying to advance our culture. I also believe God gave us the ability to help ourselves and a big part of that has to do with science. Also if you really want to be technical Christians, Muslims, and Jews pray to the same god. The god of Abraham.

I thought I implied that "technical note." Fundamental.

I agree with your statement. I just submitted there is a great deal of BS in research, same as business. The hard part about knowing some of this BS...if you weren't an engineer or physicist who worked and studied laser diodes for multi-mode fiber optics then you probably don't know enough to criticize. Oh and unlike business...there is a great risk in calling out someone's findings. It can incline that you could not repeat the findings because you are incapable...this creates a huge wall of defense, absolutely huge. If you speak out and are wrong in almost anyway....break out your spatula!

More over, I only had personal contact with a few labs and their students in college. Stories from each on posting findings and results that the student never witnessed. I was at a conference on fiber optics in San Francisco (a Global Event) when finally one guy jumped up half crazy and stated that every team he heard on that day (high-powered multi-mode lasers) had posted stable power levels several fold of what his team could validate, and he had attempted some of the "novel" practices and applications. Then some others came to his backing...all working in the same area but not presenting that day! In 6 months to a year of school I learned that the reason you hear about University findings...then never see a product spill out of it...is due to BS!

Recall I am a dumb country boy who hated school and did nothing in JH or HS. Tell me how I can then go to school at 28, and then be correcting Professors, some with multiple degrees. Or doing something they said can't be done. OK, correcting could happen, if I was having a really good day and them a bad one. But to do things they say can't be done...Programming, Statics and Dynamics, Economics, Electronics. Just saying these people ain't as smart as most think. They issue much junk just like "business" guys who are quite noted in lacking morality.

Remember, morality is not as wide spread, as fear, peer pressure, and laws. The latter 3 steer more people than morality! Then, like calling out a researcher, calling out moral code can get a fellow excommunicated too! Many people want you to practice morality, and they want to put on the cloak of it to allow them an advantage in this game we call life!

[WoVeU]

Spence...catholics are christian...the shamrock of St. patty was the tool to teach about the god that was three in one....in fact, the liturgy repeats.."God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Ghost" in prayer.

Yep!

While not expressly noted, the Holy Ghost was not a revelation. The Angel of God in the OT, God's earthly presence. Also OT, Genesis Ch. 14, Melchizedek...who dat was?

Jews and Muslims differ in the chief prophet, Moses and Muhammad. Christians chief prophet takes on a new aspect, son of God.

[WoVeU]

I think people get a little too far into the Trinity thing. We barley get the concept of God.

It seems a natural given that God would at lest stand in 2 forms. God un-seen and God viewable. The burning bush early on and other similar descriptions of God in physical form. And innately God as creator and King over all creation is one station. God manifesting himself specifically in the actions, spirituality, and salvation of man is quite another. (Though some would say this is an extension, then this extension should relatively equally take you to explaining the Holy Ghost manifestation.)

The 3rd is quite different or seem quite different. Until you get all Old Testament again. Son of God was not a New Testament revelation either. Adam all of the line behind Adam were noted this. Further, children of God is noted through the OT. Christ obviously takes this to a new level...we consider that level one of perfection...fundamentally enabled by the immaculate conception.

[billybud]

Aren't we all "children of god"?

Christ IS God...

[WoVeU]

Aren't we all "children of god"?

Christ IS God...

Show me the verse you are basing the statement on so I can know the the big "IS."

[Spence]

Spence...catholics are christian...the shamrock of St. patty was the tool to teach about the god that was three in one....in fact, the liturgy repeats.."God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Ghost" in prayer.

Actually the trinity is a feature of most christian denominations...

Wiki...

In Christian doctrine, the Trinity is the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead.[1] The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek hypostases,[2] but one being.[3] Each of the persons is understood as having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Since the beginning of the third century[4] the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."[5] Trinitarianism, belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Oriental and Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and all the mainstream traditions arising from the Protestant Reformation, such as Anglicanism, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Trinity as "the central dogma of Christian theology".[5]

This doctrine is in contrast to Nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness belief held by certain Pentecostal groups, Modalism, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence.

Historically, the doctrine of the Trinity has been of particular importance. The conflict with Arianism and other competing theological concepts during the fourth century became the first major doctrinal confrontation in Church history. It had a particularly lasting effect within the Western Roman Empire where the Germanic Arians and the Nicene Christians formed segregated social orders.

Like other terms expressing fundamental Christianity concepts, such as monotheism, the word trinity is not found in the Bible. The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19.[5]

Most christians believe that Christ was God's essence in human form. No matter what form the God in christian teachings is the God of Abraham, who was the God of Christ. Christians believe that he was also Christ's father. Some believe he was God in human form. But even if they believe that, the God they refer to is the God of Abraham.

[WoVeU]

This reminds me of a World Religion class in college. The Prof would rattle out non-Christian academic observations similar to what BB inserted here. Then me and a Catholic girl would drive him crazy in telling him that was not what we believed. He'd sometimes ask if that was what other Christians believed...most didn't agree though they'd usually note they weren't that studied or never viewed things in this manner or didn't know.

He told me he was glad the class only devoted a few days to Christianity! It was fun!

[billybud]

WoVeU..Some theologians thoughts on the matter

Sometimes we are told that there is no verse in the New Testament that says "Jesus is God," with the implication that there is no straightforward claim to his divinity to be found in its pages. Such, however, is not the case. For instance, in the following passages the deity of Christ is either explicitly asserted or strongly implied. In Titus 2:13, Paul speaks of believers "looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Peter opens his second epistle greeting "those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 1:1). Luke records Paul's words to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28 where he reminds them that they are overseers of "the church of God which he purchased with His own blood." Such a statement makes no sense unless we accept the full force of the doctrine of the incarnation: Christ was God in the flesh, therefore we may speak of God shedding his own blood. John testifies to Jesus (whom he calls the Word) in the foreword to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). John goes on to say that Jesus, the Word, is "the only begotten from the Father" (Jn 1:14) and then utters the astounding claim that "no man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him" (Jn 1:18). Thus John not only asserts Christ's deity, but also his sole ability to reveal the Father to the world. It is thus not surprising that Thomas confesses Jesus to be "My Lord and My God" in John 20:28. The author of Hebrews identifies Jesus, the Son as the person about whom the Psalmist (Ps 45:6) said: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever" (Heb 1:8). James, the brother of our Lord, identifies himself as Jesus' "bond-servant" (Jas 1:1) and refers to his brother as "the glory" in James 2:1, neither of which designations is typical of siblings or reverent Jewish believers, but both of which speak volumes about his perception of the divine nature of Christ. Such passages could be multiplied (e.g. Mt 1:23, Jn 17:3, Acts 2:17 & 33, Col 2:9, 2 Thes 1:12, I Tim 1:17, and I Jn 5:20), but the ones we have just reviewed establish the teaching of Jesus' divinity from Paul, Peter, Luke, John, Thomas, the author of Hebrews, and James-a representative selection of apostles and their understudies. All of these unambiguously and unanimously testify to the deity of our Lord.

Christ's divinity is set forth in Scripture in numerous other places and in a variety of other ways as well. First, the attributes of the one, true God of Israel are ascribed freely and without apology to Jesus by the writers of the New Testament. No first-century Jew could have done so without fully understanding the radical theological significance of such an ascription. The author of Hebrews applies Psalm 102:25-26, which asserts the eternality of God, to Christ in Hebrews 1:11-12 ("you are the same, and your years will not come to an end"), and as we have already seen John declares the Word's eternity in the prologue to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word." Our Lord's immutability is asserted in Hebrews 13:8 where we are told that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Jesus himself claims the attribute of omnipresence in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:20. "I am with you always," he says. This is only possible if he is possessed of what theologians call "immensity"-an attribute of the God of Israel alone. Jesus' omniscience is regularly stressed in the Gospel records, as for instance John's astounding declarations that Jesus "knew all men" and "knew what was in man" (Jn 2:24-25) or Luke's almost incidental comment that Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking (Lk 6:8). The New Testament also indicates that Christ possesses the divine attribute of sovereignty. Jesus himself claims unlimited divine authority when he announces "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Mt 28:18) and Paul reiterates the point when he says: "in [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form...and he is the head over all rule and authority" (Col 2:9-10). To claim that a person is eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, is to claim that person to be divine-which is precisely what the New Testament does of Christ.

In the New Testatment, the revelation of Christ’s divinity was gradual, discreet, and mainly indirect. One never meets a blunt statement: Christ is God. It had to be so if that faith was to find entrance with the Jews. Christ’s own testimony about Himself was explicit as to His being the Messiah and in continuity with the Old Testament expectation, through He repudiated a temporal messianic kingdom for a higher spiritual one. With regard to His divinity, His testimony was more implicit than explicit, more indirect than forthright. His works and miracles more than His words were to prove to men that He had divine power, even in another way than others had who worked miracles before. He meant to suggest that He had the power to forgive sins to the very people who thought that God alone forgives sins (Mt 9.6). In St. John’s Gos­pel, Christ’s testimony about His divinity is more defi­nite, yet even here more indirect than plain. He never says in so many words, “I am God,” but He says that He is one with the Father (In 10.30), a Son of God in a unique sense, in more than the messianic sense of the phrase (d. Jn 5.18; 16.25-28; 20.17). He claims for Himself the pre­rogatives of the divine nature and confirms that claim in deeds. He has power over the Sabbath (Mk 2.28; 3.1-5), the power to give life (In 10.10), the power to judge (In 5.27). All power is given Him in heaven and on earth (Mt 28.18). He claims preexistence with God the Father from the beginning, before He came down to earth (In 8.58). He claims for Himself unity in being and power with the Father and mutual immanence with the Father (In 14.10). In men’s religion He claims a central place, the same as that of God the Father; to believe in Him and to abide in Him means to believe and abide in God (d. Jn 15.7-8). Thus in word and deed Jesus testified He was the Son of the Father equal with Him in divinity

The Church of apostolic times shared the faith of the eyewitnesses of Christ’s life, death, and Resurrection. The very titles of Yahweh and His attributes were given to Christ, Lord of all, and not merely Messiah (d. Jn 20.28; Acts 10.36). Doxologies meant to be addressed to God alone were addressed also to Christ (cf. Rom 16.27). St. Paul is a witness to the faith in Christ’s preexistence as the eternal Son of God, participating in the divine na­ture, though appearing among men in the form of a slave (Phil 2.6). If He nowhere explicitly calls Him God (ex­cept perhaps Rom 9.5), but only Lord and Savior, it was because to his mind God was synonymous with Father. More definite is St. John’s intention of teaching that Christ Jesus is the Word incarnate: Word of God, true God, made flesh to dwell among us (In 1.1, 14): John is explicit about the Incarnation and the divinity of Christ.

[WoVeU]

Thanks BB.

OK, you kind of grabbed most of the implications here. I wouldn't do this on a board for anyone basically, but you have a studious mind and an eye for things.

My take, how I picture, the triune relationship, please recall this with each statement, my take. "In the beginning was the Word", from this Christ was with God before there was, at least, man. Some imply creation, but all I know is the Book is not written to the Earth, the sedimentary rocks, grass, bovine, equine, or anything other than man. Like I say in technical writing, remember the audience. Here I'd also introduce that my offspring existed within me before they came into the seen world.

From other parts in the Book Christ's existence today and during his Earth life was not what it was during the fall of Heaven. I find Lucifer's jealousy that arose when he was not to inherit the Mercy Seat and his rebellion with those that followed him is telling. Christ either had not came into even a spiritual (self, singular) existence at that time -OR- he was present but his position was going to change. WHICH, I am not sure, it does not effect me or Christ's office or any human affect or effect, thus the Bible does not convey this, to my knowledge. But some revelation of a change was communicated in some way, at least to the Chief Angle, Lucifer. I equate this in that he saw it as a demotion. Now note, it is called a Mercy Seat...mercy implies judgment restrained, so a judge, yea the judge, as there was only one seat...high enough that the Chief Angel did not get the position. So we know Christ is judge (side note: we usually speak of judge, jury, and executioner...who is the jury...don't we use 12 jurors? 12 Patriarchs and 12 Apostles I think we may well have 2 courts. Who is the executioner...Michael?) So we know 2 things about Christ at this point, he is the Word, and he is the Judge.

In Jesus' life he prayed to the Father. The only argument to find that God (in his fullness) was incarnate on Earth and doing this was to serve as an example. I highly doubt this, and come all but just a micron short of saying it can not be. He also prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane alone...you ain't teaching nobody that way. He cried from the cross my most favorite words from the Bible, Matt 27:46 "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? Which is to say, My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?" (I have written an article on this, as I feel most Christians have this entirely wrong.)
Also, the Earth was cursed, and God, after the Garden, did not walk upon the earth. (Some of this I get from the parables of Enoch.) The earth was polluted and in effect is unholy. Holy ground must be cleansed.
Additionally, Moses could not even look at God, God is a fiery spirit. (Serious, serious energy, I take this as being.)

So I cannot, imagine God, in his absolute fullness, putting on flesh, flesh can not hold his form. I think also that God can not be near sin, and God can not set foot on the Earth in current state. I also think this is one reason it will be washed in fire at the end. With these things and how Christ spoke and prayed to the Father he was not Jehovah in the flesh.

Now I have said what Christ was up to the Fall of Heaven. Then after he was the son of the living God, a prophet, and giving his life unblemished having no sin his blood covered all sins, for whosoever will...he is then also Savior. If he is Savior of man, and he is the Word to man, and the Way, Truth, and Light in addition...God has given to him Judgeship and the Power to have Mercy or Not...

Then too, he and the Father are one. I take it they have a constant share of the Holy Spirit that Christians have only felt very temporarily and likely reduced, even greatly reduced, in power. That they share all thoughts and feelings and have a oneness that would be much greater than the cumulative effect of a father and son, friends, husband and wife, sibling, priest and flock relationship.

So given all of these then Jesus is God but in the office as it relates to man. And I give this further back ground in that of a father's power in his house, a judge's power in his court room, a doctor's power over his operating table, a priest's power over his flock, a King's power over his country. Christ has all of these and more powers over man he can grant abilities, earthly reward, and eternal life. Christ is our God. But GOD in the Universal vastness goes further, it isn't all about man...there is the little matter of all of creation and all the physical phenomena in the Universe we have both seen and not seen.

I guess that is about as well as I can explain it...and I'm sure there are many typos and other grammar problems to get in the way in addition to my limitation as a flesh man.

[billybud]

Thanks WoVeU...

[WoVeU]

You're most welcome BB!

That is one of the BIG questions.

[Spence]

Nice WoVeU. I'm going to split this topic and put it in the off topic thread. It has nothing to do with anything except that it really doesn't belong here.

[WoVeU]

I awaited a move.

But speak of a trinity. That was quite the mitosis you had to pull. I just hate you had to work that hard!

[Eric]

I understand what you're saying Spence, but you're starting off from a premise that assumes there is a creator when that may or may not be true. I realize that's what faith is all about, but if I say the universe revolves around a little invisible teapot in the center of the vast cosmos, you can't prove me wrong. Therefore, if there is a book written about the teapot meant to be an explanation of how things began, I can manipulate science to fit the book's interpretation.

I don't really pretend to know what to believe. I'm kind of playing Devil's Advocate, pardon the pun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

*Note I haven't read the posts beyond this one. But....Veto!

Wrong. And can be proven wrong. This however does prove one of my points, people of a non-science back ground, start evoking science this and that...because it sounds good and seems to add merit.

Eric, your one attempted one up-man-ship ran into a scientific conflict called gravity!

And I don't think science supports the supernatural. My invisible teapot that can't be viewed with a telescope because it is invisible defies the laws of gravity because it has supernatural capabilities

[WoVeU]

And I don't think science supports the supernatural. My invisible teapot that can't be viewed with a telescope because it is invisible defies the laws of gravity because it has supernatural capabilities

Oh, you should have said that. It having supernatural mass like 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times the mass of a normal teapot is a totally different story!