A Simple Way to Experience Christ

Okay Rwingett,

Want to start all over again?

I'm willing to forgive and forget all past offenses.

I forgive you. And I apologize for the personal attacks.


Whose the other guy I insulted?

Scotts, ( I doubt he gives a damn )

I forgive you too. You got on my last nerve. But I apologize for the insults.

I don't think we can talk much any more. I don't think we can have mutual cordiality.


And readers who had to read this garbage rather than discussion - Sorry for my part in it.

To my Christian brothers and sisters - Sorry also.

Originally posted by jaywill
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One of the first traits I see in fundamentalist christians is that they seem to take pride in their stupidity. Almost as though it's a badge of honor, frequently used in conjunction with with a strong martyr complex. After all, if they were clever, like they frequently accuse the atheists of being, then they wouldn't be 'persecuted' n ...[text shortened]... or high school is more your arena for exchanging ideas on these important matters.

Originally posted by rwingett
I will choose to overlook your mean and nasty ad hominems, you bad person, and take a more philosophical and scientific approach here.

Dust.

It seems that sloughed skin cells are one of the prime contributing factors to the accumulation of household dust. This has some very interesting theological implications. For if god is composed of dust, as I ha make up the being who, in turn, shed his skin cells to make up god. It's an infinite regress.

Originally posted by rwingett
I will choose to overlook your mean and nasty ad hominems, you bad person, and take a more philosophical and scientific approach here.

Dust.

It seems that sloughed skin cells are one of the prime contributing factors to the accumulation of household dust. This has some very interesting theological implications. For if god is composed of dust, as I ha make up the being who, in turn, shed his skin cells to make up god. It's an infinite regress.

Originally posted by jaywill
The more philosophical and scientific approach.

Well, I don't know why you EXCLUDE spiritual approach. But philosophical is close.

As for scientific approach I already asked one poster to cut to the chase and eliminate the need for any further arguement by one simple proof -

Produce his scientific formula proving beyond any reasonable doubt the n ...[text shortened]... able doubt then we can consider the discussion closed forever.

Anyone have such a formula?

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It seems that sloughed skin cells are one of the prime contributing factors to the accumulation of household dust. This has some very interesting theological implications. For if god is composed of dust, as I have deductively established, then a good portion of him is composed of sloughed skin cells.
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I don't know why the poster deduces from Genesis that image and likeness could only refer to physical attributes of God.

Now we are told in Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

I don't know why the poster cannot deduce from this simple sentence that the Creator God transcends and pre-dates the physical universe. If God created the heavens and the earth then before their creation He must have been composed of something not included in the heavens and the earth.

We are told in verse 2 " ... and the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the deep".

It should be evident that "the Spirit of God" is some human language way of expressing that what God was was there hovering over and observing His creation.

As much as it may annoy out limitation of human language, we have to accept that this phrase "the Spirit of God" must refer to something which transcends that which was created by God and known as heaven and earth.

Coming up to God creating man - there is no reason to assume that image of God and likeness of God can only refer to atoms, molecules, dust, or what have you of that which God created in the beginning.

Latter in the Bible when God says that His thoughts are not our thoughts and that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts above our thjoughts, I'm sure that we can conclude that this ability to think, is one of the divine attributes reflected in the way man was made.

Imagination, love, purpose, will, conscience, and other attributes of the human being must be included in the image / likeness of God.

I like to thing of man in God's image something like a glove in the image of a human hand. A glove has a hand shaped image. This is for the purpose that a human hand may slip comfortably into the glove.

Man was made as a "God shaped vessel". His spiritual and and soulical being is created in a way so that God can fit into him.

When you see a glove you could say "There is a hand in the glove." What we really mean is that the glove is in the image of a hand. When the glove is empty you see the image of a hand in the glove.

When the hand is in the glove we see a real hand inside the glove and the glove expresses the life and movement of the hand. And the hand is the content and energizing of the glove. One fits perfectly into the other.

This is an analogy. It has limitations. But it expresses the biblical thought that man is made in a "God shaped" manner. And this is for the purpose of God imparting and dispensing Himself into man and living in oneness with man.

Originally posted by rwingett
No such formula is possible. Nor is it necessary. The entire burden of proof is upon the theist. It is up to him to demonstrate that his god exists, not the other way around. If he cannot do so, then why should anyone believe it?

Originally posted by jaywill
This is the argument that the Default Position is disbelief in God.

I think it is up to the atheist that we should consider that the default position of man's attitude necessarily has to be disbelief in God.

Why should disbelief in God be the default position of mankind such that burden of proof of God's existence falls on the believer?

Originally posted by jaywill
Where did God come from?

From eternity, from everlasting. Like it says in Psalms 90:

[b]"Indeed from eternity to eternity, You are God" (Psalm. 90:2 RcV)[/b]

Originally posted by jaywill
Okay Rwingett,

Want to start all over again?

I'm willing to forgive and forget all past offenses.

I forgive you. And I apologize for the personal attacks.


Whose the other guy I insulted?

Scotts, ( I doubt he gives a damn )

I forgive you too. You got on my last nerve. But I apologize for the insults ...[text shortened]... iscussion - Sorry for my part in it.

To my Christian brothers and sisters - Sorry also.

Originally posted by jaywill
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It seems that sloughed skin cells are one of the prime contributing factors to the accumulation of household dust. This has some very interesting theological implications. For if god is composed of dust, as I have deductively established, then a good portion of him is composed of sloughed skin cells.
======================== God imparting and dispensing Himself into man and living in oneness with man.

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This is all speculation on your part. Imagination, love, purpose, etc. may all be attributes that are included in the image/likeness of god, but they do not concern me. For my purposes, I am only concerned with the physical attributes, for they suffice, on their own, to make my point.
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It may not concern you and it may not concern your purpose. But it concerns a accurate and balanced presentation of what the Bible teaches.

You may be some kind of consumate materialist who sees nothing but material existence. If so you are not going to undertand the Bible well.

As for speculation, it is accurate speculation. Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God was there. And man, God's creation, correspondingly was created with "the spirit of man within him":

"...Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him..." (Zech. 12:1)


The order of priority is clear. The heavens are created for the earth. The earth is created for man. And within man there is "the spirit of man within him". That "spirit of man" is something not material and corresponds to "the Spirit of God".

This may not be your theology. But I'm pretty sure that you would not like to be treated as if you were only a material entity alone.

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The presence of any other extraneous variable do not invalidate that point. And I don't need to go in to any speculative analysis as to what the bible may or may not "mean" by certain passages. I will stick to a straightforward and unencumbered reading of the relevant passages.
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I don't understand any attempt to "understand" the Bible which holds that it is superflous to analyze what the Bible may or may not mean.

I don't think any subject matter can be comprehended without this kind of analysis. I think what you are saying is that only your limited analysis is important. You are only constricting the analysis to argue that biased position. You end up with a caricature of what the Bible is conveying.

"There is a spirit in man. And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding". This is meant to convey that within man, certainly within his physical frame, there is an vital immaterial component. Understanding itself given by [b'"the breath of the Almighty"[/b] is something not material.

Lastly, the New Testament confirms that man "wholly" is composed of three components. Two of them are not material:

"And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:23)

For man to be preserved "wholly" is to include not simply his body, which is of the dust of the ground. It also includes two immaterial components of man - the spirit and the soul. Man is "spirit and soul and body."

And again "the spirit of man within him" in Zechariah would communicate that within man's being, certainly within his dusty physical being, there is the spirit within him. God has understanding and the ruach or spirit within man gives man also understanding. So the immaterial part of man is made in the image of God.

You cannot restrict the passages on man's creation to only refer to his physical being.


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GEN 2:7 then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of ife; and man became a living being.
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Man became a living soul. The union of the breath of God, the spirit, with the physical body made of the dust of the ground resulted in man becoming a living soul. A "living soul" cannot be reduced to chemical and molecular components.

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GEN 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;..."

By using only information provided by the bible itself, the inescapable conclusion is that god is also made from dust.
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Can you provide some other confirming passage indicating that God is made of dust? If this is a cardinal and central teaching of the Bible it should be confirmed somewhere else, I would think.

If dust is of the creation of heaven and earth, then how could God be composed of dust before He created heaven and earth?

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And dust, as we know, is comprised in large part by sloughed skin cells. The theological implications of which lead us inexorably to an infinite regress, as outlined in my earlier post.
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The mountains and the hills are no doubt composed with dust. Yet before they existed God was:

"Before the mountains were brought forth, And before You gave birth to the earth and the world, Indeed from eternity to eternity, You are God.

You return man to dust ..." (Psalm 90:2,3a)

Here not only God tells man under the discipline of physical death to return to dust. We are told before the mountains and hills of dust were given birth God was already in existence.

Likewise He tells us as a sympathetic father that he will not forget that our frame is made of dust:

" As compassionate as a father is toward his children, So compassionate is Jehovah toward those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:13,14)

Here God compassionately remembers the limitation which makes us not equal to Himself. He remembers that the nature of our frame is dust. He will not forget this essential difference between His eternal nature and ours.

Of course in the incarnation of God to become a man in Jesus Christ, He did take on our dusty framed physical body. That is an expansion of the subject at hand. In Genesis, before incarnation, the Spirit of God is not the dust of the earth. Sorry.


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There is nothing in the bible about man being made as a "god shaped vessel."
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You don't know the Bible that well. Now here is where we see man created as a dusty vessel to contain God, precisely:

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us" (2 Cor. 4:7)

This is the apostle Paul teaching that the Christians are earthen vessels. That means that we are a vessel made of earth. And that within the born again believer there is the treasure which includes the power not of us but of God.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us" (2 Cor. 4:7)

So you are just not as familiar with what the Bible says as you should be to speak well on the subject.

Plus the fact that in Genesis God creating man and placing man before "the tree of life" should indicate that man was created to contain the divine and uncreated life of God. That would correspond to Paul's teaching of "treasure in earthen vessels".

Man's created life is wonderful. Man created in God's image is wonderful. But man was created as a vessel to contain God as the uncreated divine life. This is the significance of man being placed before the tree of life in Genesis. And though this plan was lost on the disobedient first man, it is recovered in Christ's incarnation and imparting of Himself to man as the eternal life.

You don't know the Bible that well. But that is an exciting opportunity to learn more, depending on your attitude.

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This is nothing but an exegetical sophistry on your part, the nature of which is very similar to the manner how the early proto-orthodox christians twisted the original message of Jesus to suit their own inscrutible and nefarious purposes. But at least you, good sir, have been thwarted in your malignant, Machiavellian machinations.
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You, sir, are attempting to warp the Bible to uphold your materialism.

Man is also discribed specifically as a vessel in Romans:

"And what if God, wishing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering VESSELS of wrath fitted for destruction, in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon VESSELS of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory" (Romans 9:22,23)

Those participating in His eternal plan are vessels of mercy prepared for glory. Those who are not saved are also vessels. Unfortunately they become vessels of God's wrath fitted for destruction.

Since His will and good pleasure does not involved His anger, God created man as a vessel, a container.

And of course we see that the Triune God, the Father, the Son, in the Holy Spirit will come to the lover of the Son of God and make a living home within such:

"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him" (John 14:23)

For the Father and the Son to come and make an abode with the lover of Christ is for the treasure to dwell in the earthen vessel. Here again we see man created in God's image is for the purpose that the Triune God would come into man to be his uncreated divine life abiding within the vessel of man's being.

Jesus Kills

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
A rather vague and nebulous answer. Can you clarify?

Testing ... 1 2 3