Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Where to start? Oh, I suppose we'll go chronologically, as there is no other order involved in the post.
Your air of arrogant superiority is not fooling anyone.
Let's not mix the metaphors with the similes. The Jewish race is the youngest of the races, beginning not as a cultural distinction, but as a racial distinction, circa Abram crossing the river (pun intended, but likely lost on all but a few of the readers). Traced from his lineage, they were distinct nationally with their departure (under Moses' leadership) out of Egypt.
All that begatting in the time between Adam and Abram was begatting of Gentiles, until Abram became Abraham, the first Hebrew, and did his begatting of the first-born Jew, Jacob. This introduces the principal "they of Israel are not all Israel,' or, there is racial Israel and there is spiritual Israel.
Which Israel is talked about in the prophecy cited in Genesis? Racial or spiritual?
As stated earlier, there are near and far fulfillment aspects of some prophecy. While Israel was at one point a great nation, flourishing with promise, she never occupied the land as instructed. Never executed what she was commanded, to the degree instructed. She will, at some point, become the focal government of the planet. While Israel today fulfills no prophetic promises, nor is her current 're-gathering' in any way a sign of portent, Israel today commands much more world attention than any other country, proportionately.
LOL! Well, then you will always be right! When incident X happens to the Jews, you can
consider it part of the prophecy, and when X happens to another people, you can say it is
just coincidence. And, when incident Y happens which hasn't happened to the Jews, but has
happened to another people, you can call it 'far fullfilled!'
What a coincidence! That's the beauty of prophecy: there's always the future to ensure it
will come true!
LOL!
Using your scale of values, perhaps Barney Rubble should have been mentioned, as well. Many people have been players on the stage. None, outside of the humanity of Christ, loom more impressively than Abraham. At least on one level, Churchill and I have something in common: he would scoff at anyone putting him in the same sphere of influence as the father of the Hebrews.
How would you know what my scale of values is? I'm not denying that (the story of) Abram
had a dramatic impact upon human history. However, the notion that, second to Jesus, he was
the most influential person in history is rather a steep claim.
Would you care to defend it? Or are you going to keep posturing, implying that such a claim
is self-evidently true?
They will.
Uh-huh. The Mormons say the same about you.
Nemesio
Originally posted by NemesioYour air of arrogant superiority is not fooling anyone.
You wouldn't know arrogance if it was staring at you in the mirror.
Racial or spiritual?
Yes.
when X happens to another people, you can say it is
just coincidence.
Are you being deliberate in ignoring the text? To Abram. God, speaking--- not out to the ether, not to the Fraternal Order of Masons in New York--- to Abram.
When blessings happen to other people, it is not a coincidence, it is cause and effect, just like the universe.
It is not, however, because of God's contract with Abram, except for the already-noted exceptions.
However, the notion that, second to Jesus, he was
the most influential person in history is rather a steep claim.
Right. Because, just off the top of your head, you can think of an easy five people who have had the impact that Abraham has had on this planet.
Now, you could make the argument for Adam or Noah, as they were up the river from Abraham, so to speak, and both were pivotal during momentous times in human history.
Abraham, however, is looked at as the patriarch of the three major faiths, each of which have reshaped the entire globe. Although the Far East has a long history, and its populace is nothing to shake a stick at, the Far East is more reclusive, and at best played a minor role in the shaping of Western civilization, to date.
The impact Jewry, Christians, and Muslims have had on the planet cannot be overemphasized. And it started with one man, heeding the call of God, leaving civilization to become a nomad, never seeing the fullness of the contracts, but knowing it would occur, nonetheless.
Uh-huh. The Mormons say the same about you.
The Mormons believe a romance book, entitiled, "Manuscript Found," by a Reverend Solomon Spalding, is another testament of the Lord Jesus Christ. Great people, but I don't put much weight in what they say, theologically-speaking.
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Right. Because, just off the top of your head, you can think of an easy five people who have had the impact that Abraham has had on this planet.
Give me your criteria for impact. Otherwise, you can claim that the sorts of impacts that I'm
going to list don't count.
Nemesio
Originally posted by NemesioGive me your criteria for impact.
Let's decide. Here are a few of the areas I would say affect members of a society on the most common and consistent basis.
Religious influence
Jurisprudence
Scientific advancement
Literature
Military
Financial
Are there any areas which I have overlooked, or to which you do not agree? I did not put them in any type of order.
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Give me your criteria for impact.
Let's decide. Here are a few of the areas I would say affect members of a society on the most common and consistent basis.
Religious influence
Jurisprudence
Scientific advancement
Literature
Military
Financial
Are there any areas which I have overlooked, or to which you do not agree? I did not put them in any type of order.[/b]
Charlemagne, himself, had a larger influence on all of these things than Abram.
Or, if you prefer, the West had a larger influence, because of Charlemange than
the Jews did because of Abram.
Nemesio
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html
"15. In Jesus Christ, Son of God made Man, there shone the plentitude of divine revelation. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son" (Heb. i. 1). The sacred books of the Old Testament are exclusively the word of God, and constitute a substantial part of his revelation; they are penetrated by a subdued light, harmonizing with the slow development of revelation, the dawn of the bright day of the redemption. As should be expected in historical and didactic books, they reflect in many particulars the imperfection, the weakness and sinfulness of man. But side by side with innumerable touches of greatness and nobleness, they also record the story of the chosen people, bearers of the Revelation and the Promise, repeatedly straying from God and turning to the world. Eyes not blinded by prejudice or passion will see in this prevarication, as reported by the Biblical history, the luminous splendor of the divine light revealing the saving plan which finally triumphs over every fault and sin. It is precisely in the twilight of this background that one perceives the striking perspective of the divine tutorship of salvation, as it warms, admonishes, strikes, raises and beautifies its elect. Nothing but ignorance and pride could blind one to the treasures hoarded in the Old Testament."
16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the world: he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human nature from a people that was to crucify Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son of God who to His torturer's sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and made the new alliance the goal of the old alliance, its realization and its crown.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html
Originally posted by David CDavid C: " .... did you not know he was a devout Christian."
The bible is not a history textbook, in spite of what you may have been led to believe.
I'm not sure why you've brought up Voltaire, who 'scrutinized' the bible and found it wanting. Or Marx, who likewise realized it wasn't useful for his ends, but rather an opiate. The Hitler reference is most puzzling...did you not know he was a devout Christian?
So Hitler was a devout Christian ?
Please read what Pope Pius XI has to say about this "devout" Christian and his of course equally "devout" friends and their Nazi-ideas in his Encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" ["With Deep Anxiety "] in 1937:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html
MIT BRENNENDER SORGE
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON THE CHURCH AND THE GERMAN REICH
"The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies."
" ... before the evidence of events should have torn the mask off the systematic hostility leveled at the Church."
" The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.
8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
9. Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side."
" ... to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, ... "
" ... who have persisted in their Christian duty and in the defense of God's rights in the teeth of an aggressive paganism."
"Should any man dare, in sacrilegious disregard of the essential differences between God and His creature, between the God-man and the children of man, to place a mortal, were he the greatest of all times, by the side of, or over, or against, Christ, he would deserve to be called prophet of nothingness, to whom the terrifying words of Scripture would be applicable: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them" (Psalms ii. 3). "
"A Christianity which keeps a grip on itself, refuses every compromise with the world, takes the commands of God and the Church seriously, preserves its love of God and of men in all its freshness, such a Christianity can be, and will be, a model and a guide to a world which is sick to death and clamors for directions, unless it be condemned to a catastrophe that would baffle the imagination."
" .... to all those imprisoned in jail and concentration camps, the Father of the Christian world sends his words of gratitude and commendation."
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"... of those who deny, despise and hate God, ... "
Please, stop spreading the lie that Adolf Hitler was a devout Christian.
Originally posted by ivanhoeThat's why he was excommunicated!
David C: " .... did you not know he was a devout Christian."
So Hitler was a devout Christian ?
Please read what Pope Pius XI has to say about this "devout" Christian and his of course equally "devout" friends and their Nazi-ideas in his Encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" ["With Deep Anxiety "] in 1937:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/piu ...[text shortened]... nder-sorge_en.html
Please, stop spreading the lie that Adolf Hitler was a devout Christian.
Er, never mind.
The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: An Interview with Rabbi David G. Dalin
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=2&art_id=29530
Cover-to-Cover Deception
Thomas Woods: Ronald Rychlak has done some excellent work debunking the claims of John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope (1999). It turns out that the book’s dishonesty begins on its front cover. Can you elaborate on that?
Rabbi David Dalin: The book’s dishonesty does indeed begin on the front cover of Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope. The book’s title, Hitler’s Pope, is of course historically false and malicious itself. Eugenio Pacelli, who served as papal nuncio in Berlin until 1929, never met or spoke with Adolf Hitler. During Hitler’s much-publicized state visit to Rome in 1938, for example, Pacelli (together with Pope Pius XI) very publicly snubbed the Nazi leader by refusing to meet with him and by leaving Rome for the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.
"As you note, Tom, the malicious title Hitler’s Pope is reinforced by the book’s misleading jacket, which has a picture of Pacelli, then the papal nuncio in Berlin, leaving a reception given for the constitutionally elected president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, in 1927. This photograph, a favorite of those who wish to portray Pius XII in an unfavorable light, shows him dressed in formal diplomatic regalia (which could easily be confused with papal garments), and being saluted by two German soldiers of the Weimar Republic as he leaves a German government building. The distinctive helmets of the German soldiers could easily mislead viewers into thinking these soldiers of the Weimar Republic were soldiers of the Third Reich. The use of this photograph under the title Hitler’s Pope gives the impression that Pope Pius XII had just left a friendly diplomatic meeting with Adolf Hitler. “The casual reader,” suggests historian Philip Jenkins, “is meant to infer that Pacelli is emerging from a cosy tête-à-tête with Hitler — perhaps they have been chatting about plans for a new extermination camp?” “Perhaps photographs do not lie,” concludes Jenkins, “but this particular book cover — offered in the context it was, and under the title Hitler’s Pope — comes close.” Making matters even worse is the caption inside the British edition of the book, which reads: “Cover photograph shows Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, leaving the presidential palace in Berlin, March 1939,” which is patently false."
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=2&art_id=29530
Originally posted by ivanhoehttp://www.nobeliefs.com/images/hitler_cardinal4.jpg
The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: An Interview with Rabbi David G. Dalin
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=2&art_id=29530
Cover-to-Cover Deception
Thomas Woods: Ronald Rychlak has done some excellent work debunking the claims of John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope (1999). It turns out that the book’s dishonesty begins on its front cover. Can y ...[text shortened]... hich is patently false."
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=2&art_id=29530
That must be one of those actors dressed up to look like a Roman Catholic Cardinal. like the phony priests the National Geographic Channel had on the other night.
Originally posted by no1marauderIs this the Cardinal? :
http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/hitler_cardinal4.jpg
That must be one of those actors dressed up to look like a Roman Catholic Cardinal. like the phony priests the National Geographic Channel had on the other night.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
Originally posted by NemesioCharlemagne, himself, had a larger influence on all of these things than Abram.
Naive or knave? The latter is greater than the former, although everything of value which the latter is able to do, relies on the actions of the former.
With notable exception (i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ), the student does not surpass the teacher.
Charlie did a few things which established his name, but he did not initiate one--- let alone all--- of the world's main religions. And that was just one of the aspects considered.
What you pathetically offer as proof of impact sinks below any further response.
In a word: idiocy. In two words: pure idiocy.
Originally posted by FreakyKBHhttp://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
[b]Charlemagne, himself, had a larger influence on all of these things than Abram.
Naive or knave? The latter is greater than the former, although everything of value which the latter is able to do, relies on the actions of the former.
With notable exception (i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ), the student does not surpass the teacher.
Charlie did ...[text shortened]... roof of impact sinks below any further response.
In a word: idiocy. In two words: pure idiocy.[/b]
keeping the record straight
Originally posted by frogstompThe list provided aids in analyzing the world's religions, although a cursory reading of the list will eliminate many of them from the discussion of impact on Western civilization.
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
keeping the record straight
Of the 22 listed, 19 of them were either in opposition of Western adavance, or had nothing to do with the same.