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Would a good God predestine some people to Heaven and the rest to Hell no matter what choices people made? The answer seems obvious–except for Calvinists.
The intellectual father of John Calvin was Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Augustine developed a doctrine which amounted to “single predestination,” the notion that God predestines some individuals to Heaven. Everyone else goes to Hell by default, since all humans have sinned and deserve Hell. In the Confessions, Augustine even believes that unbaptized infants are going to Hell, giving a new meaning to the term “Burn, baby, burn.” Although the Council of Orange in the seventh century softened Augustine’s doctrine for the medieval Roman Catholic Church, John Calvin revived it and made it more radical than before. Calvin, influenced by late medieval Nominalism, believed that everything is subject to God’s sovereign will. He thought that the only way to preserve God’s total sovereignty was to posit predestination. To be fair, Calvin does not consider God’s choice of the saved and the damned to be arbitrary; he leaves it a mystery. But he does seem to accept double predestination–even if he were interpreted to accept single predestination, the result is the same–people are saved or damned without any choice of their own being involved. The seventeenth century Synod of Dort solidified hard line Calvinism into five points: Total Hereditary Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement (Christ only died for the saved), Irresistible Grace (the saved cannot accept or refuse God’s grace–it is granted to them unconditionally and they cannot resist it) and Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). This system is sometimes known as TULIP Calvinism. Contemporary Southern Baptists inconsistently accept perseverance of the saints without accepting a strong view of predestination.
The God of TULIP Calvinism is an evil God, period. Any God who would pick out some people to be in endless bliss with that God forever and choose to damn the rest to eternal misery in Hell is a bully, a monster, utterly unworthy of worship. A doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God is preserved at the cost of God’s goodness. The God of the Bible is a God of love, and love requires mutuality. A good God loves everyone, and everyone has a choice whether to love God and grow in that love. God’s grace is unmerited favor, that is true. None of us “miserable sinners” can stand in God’s presence as justified without His grace. But if we choose to receive that grace, God will help us to fulfill His will and grow in love to Him. God’s love is not arbitrary, it is not cruel, but we must accept that love or else God will let us live forever left to ourselves–and that is Hell. “God is not willing that any should perish, but demands that all men everywhere repent.” Sure, there are passages of Holy Scripture that Calvinists take out of context, but it surely says something about how the early Christians understood Scripture that NO ONE in the early Christian church, NONE of the Church Fathers came up with a Calvin-like doctrine of predestination before Augustine.
If the God of Calvinism existed, I would rather go to Hell, because living with such a deity would be worse than living with Satan himself.
Sep 21, 2010 @ 02:52:11
Just a question for you…is the bible the ultimate authority in your life?
Sep 21, 2010 @ 03:11:56
Christ as revealed through Holy Tradition, of which Holy Scripture is the oldest layer, is the authority in my life. Private interpretation leads to the very distortions of the message of Scripture that five-point Calvinism represents. The Catholic Church, at least in those areas in which the Eastern and Western Churches agree, offers a lens through which Scripture can be correctly interpreted. The Church gave us Scripture–although the NT books were around since the first and early second centuries, the first list of NT books with the current 27 is found in the 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius in 367 A.D. For every scripture you quote regarding predestination and foreordination, I can find one that says that Christ died for all–so we would be at an impasse. And the Bible is not a monolithic document; there are many different emphases found, and the Church finds the proper balance between those emphases.
Sep 24, 2010 @ 22:25:13
How did the Roman church give us Scripture when the Scriptures existed long before the Roman church?
Sep 25, 2010 @ 13:04:19
First, I did not say that the Roman church gave us Scripture. I said that the Catholic Church gave us Scripture. Not all Catholic Christians are Roman Catholic. Second, you equivocate when you say “the Scriptures existed.” Are you talking about the Hebrew Bible? Or are you talking about the New Testament books? I assume you mean the latter. The New Testament books were not initially accepted as Scripture. The gospels were accepted by the early second century, as were the epistles of Paul, as evidenced by the early second century book II Peter. But II Peter itself, because it was written later than the other books (and not by the Apostle Peter, despite Fundamentalists objections to the contrary) was not universally accepted as scripture until the fourth century. It was the unified Catholic Church that gave us Scripture, not the Roman Catholic Church. I would agree with you that Roman innovations, such as giving the Bishop of Rome authority to tell other bishops what to do, was wrong, and this did not happen until the sixth or seventh century.
Sep 25, 2010 @ 21:09:53
I was referring to what we know call the Old Testament. It was already in existence when the church was formed. The New Testament authors refer to it quite often in their writings. The New Testament letters were written after THE Church as was initially formed (at the Day of Pentecost). It was my understanding that these letters were recognized as Scripture very quick by the Church. We did not have to wait until 200 – 300 years later for the Roman Catholic Church to “give us” the Bible.
Sep 25, 2010 @ 18:14:45
The Bible as the ultimate authority??? Who would have that as the “guiding light” when they could have the Church instead? The Church is FAR superior to the Bible alone.
The Bible was put together by the Catholic Church NOT the “Roman” Church. The Catholic Church (today known as the Orthodox Church) determined in its councils which books went into the Bible and which books stayed out of the Bible. They had the authority to do so as they were and are the Church that Christ established. If you trust that the Church was lead by the Holy Spirit to determine which books were correct and which were not, then how can you NOT trust the Church in other doctrinal issues that were defined at that Very Same Council?? To do so would be to divide the Actions of the Holy Spirit into personally approved or personally refuted areas. To do so borders VERY closely on the unforgiveable sin!!! Individually deciding what is correct and incorrect when it comes to what the Church has given you even though Christ sent the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in all truth!
The Roman Church is NOT the Catholic Church. It ONCE was PART of it, but no longer and not since the year 1054.
But concerning the Bible, most Protestants don’t realize that Martin Luther, the Roman priest, removed books from the Bible that he had no authority to do so, simply because they got in the way of his heretical new theology. Read the missing books that this individual man took out of the Holy Scriptures. They are enlightening. The Orthodox Church kept those books in because there was never a reason to take them out. It’s the Bible that Saint Peter used. It’s the Bible that Saint Paul used, so why not utilize those books as well?
Concerning Calvin and Augustine…Augustine, though considered to be a Saint by the Church, he was recognized to be in theological error on many points.
Sep 25, 2010 @ 21:17:15
Fr. Timothy,
You said: “The Bible as the ultimate authority??? Who would have that as the “guiding light” when they could have the Church instead? The Church is FAR superior to the Bible alone.”
I, for one, prefer my “guiding light” to be God’s Word. The bible is God’s Word. It is God-breathed. It carries His authority. When someone rejects the Bible as the ultimate authority they are reject God Himself as ultimate authority. To claim that the Church is “FAR superior to the Bible alone” is to claim that the church is in a position superior to God. I think that is a position you might want to reconsider.
Sep 26, 2010 @ 04:53:37
Where in the world do you get that I say that the Church is superior to God???
I do reject the Bible as the ultimate authority…of course I do. Jesus did not come to establish “His Bible”. He came to establish His Church which the gates of Hell would not prevail against and that He would send the Holy Spirit to guide it in all truth and that it was the Bride of Christ.
To say that my claim is that the Church is superior to the Bible is saying that the Church is superior to god is to turn the Bible into an Idol. Of course this is common to the Neo-”Christian” Protestant sects out there that cannot recognize it’s own history, or the actual factual history of the Church not to mention how the Bible came into existence.
Further, it’s interesting that you site the Old Testament scriptures from above since the Old Testament that you use is MISSING SEVERAL books from it than the Old Testament that the Apostles used and quoted from!
The Bible is a collection of early church writings but not the only ones. There are the early creeds which were put together at the same councils that the Bible was put together. The CHURCH, not the “Bible” decided these things. The CHURCH was lead by the Holy Spirit, not a book. The CHURCH was given all the things that Christ promised it would receive and it was the thing that Christ came to establish. To dismiss it in favor of a Book that the Church put together (and at the same time (for no apparent or logical reason) ignore the other writings and creeds of the Church) is a severely flawed argument and contains no consistent reasoning or logic.
The Church, not the Bible has maintained its doctrine consistently over the last 2000 years. The Bible, taken out of the context of the History of the Church and read by individuals who become their own private Popes has created 40,000+ Protestant denominations with new ones being formed each week and ALL of them use the Bible as their point of reference. What do you believe? Oh, I believe the Bible, the problem is painfully obvious. So do the other 40,000 protestant denominations and sects and cults. Whereas, the Orthodox Church has retained her Doctrine, her Practice and the Truth and Tradition which we were told to preserve and no other group can make that claim and be historically correct.
So consistently and from the start, you have the Historical Church that Jesus and His Apostles began and successors continued continuing to believe and practice the same way and then you have the “bible believers” which means absolute SQUAT!!!
The Bible gets its authority from the Church, NOT the other way around. But, the worship of the bible is common in Protestant groups. The origin of the Bible is clear. The Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Laity of the Church came together and lead by the Holy Spirit they put together a group of writings which became the Canon of the New Testament in order to combat false and non-canonical books from being included in sacred texts. That same group at that same council established statements of Faith such as the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed to keep the heresies of that day OUT of the Church. They wrote the Canons of the Church to keep order and to preserve Holy Tradition. So, the vessel on earth to keep and preserve God’s Gospel is certainly not a book but the Church that put that book together. Jesus never wrote a single word in the Bible but He most certainly establish the Church. The Bible talks about order in the Church and provides structure for it in certain letters written by the Apostle Paul. But the bottom line is this. The Church could and HAS existed just fine without the Bible, but the Bible would have never been, without the Church
Sep 26, 2010 @ 04:55:32
Martin Luther REMOVED books from the Old Testament that were always in it up to that point, on his own authority because he didn’t personally like them. This is a fine example of what Protestantism is really about. The glorification of ones own personal authority and ego!
Sep 26, 2010 @ 11:39:20
Luther also called the New Testament book of James “an epistle of straw.” He accepted the doctrine of “a canon within a canon”; that is, whatever book of the Bible did not suit his “grace-only, faith-only” salvation scheme is one he put on a lower level–as if he, one individual, had any authority whatsoever to do so.
Sep 27, 2010 @ 01:56:11
Fr. Timothy
You said: “Jesus did not come to establish “His Bible”. He came to establish His Church”
Where are we told in Scripture that Jesus came to establish his church? Jesus came to save his people (Matthew 1:21), seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10), for judgment (John 9:39), for abundant life (John 10:10), and save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Most of these references are direct quotations of Jesus speaking. Since he took time to give us all these reasons for his coming, don’t you think he would have somewhere mentioned the he also came to “establish the church”?
You said: “To say that my claim is that the Church is superior to the Bible is saying that the Church is superior to god is to turn the Bible into an Idol. Of course this is common to the Neo-”Christian” Protestant sects out there that cannot recognize it’s own history, or the actual factual history of the Church not to mention how the Bible came into existence.”
The Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). It is God’s very words to us. As such, it carries his authority. Rejecting his words are the same as rejecting him. The church is never described as God-breathed. It is a creation by God. A tool he uses to spread his word. A tool he uses to do his ministry. I trust you can see the difference. This does not make God’s word into an idol…..it gives it the proper respect and authority.
You said: “The Church, not the Bible has maintained its doctrine consistently over the last 2000 years. The Bible, taken out of the context of the History of the Church and read by individuals who become their own private Popes”
The Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has recreated the very thing Christ did away with on the Cross. When he died and the curtain was ripped, top to bottom, separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, Christ gave direct access to God to his people. No longer did they have to go through some other man or institution to speak to God. If we are found to be in conflict with what Jesus is doing then we better change our stance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox church are guilty of opposing Jesus by requiring people to approach God through the filter of church tradition. No protestant becomes their “own private popes” but they do submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit….just as Jesus intended.
You said: “But the bottom line is this. The Church could and HAS existed just fine without the Bible, but the Bible would have never been, without the Church”
All I can say is WOW. I can’t believe what I just read. I had to read it several times to make sure I read it correctly. All I can say is this: Why would I want to follow a corrupt institution led by flawed sinful men who claim no need for or dependence on God’s word when I could have God’s infallible, inerrant, perfect word as my guide? To me the choice is simple. To any reading this I hope the choice is obvious to you as well.
Sep 27, 2010 @ 22:50:56
Tom Said: “Where are we told in Scripture that Jesus came to establish his church? ”
Let’s see, that would be when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my Church”. That’s more or less Bible 101. for a set of books you claim to hold on the same level as God, you sure don’t seem to know much about it.
>Tom said: The Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). It is God’s very >words to us. As such, it carries his authority. Rejecting his words are the >same as rejecting him. The church is never described as God-breathed. >It is a creation by God. A tool he uses to spread his word. A tool he uses >to do his ministry. I trust you can see the difference. This does not >make God’s word into an idol…..it gives it the proper respect and >authority
That’s kind of funny. You say that one book of the Bible testifies for the whole Bible that DIDN”T EVEN EXIST when it testified of ITSELF??? That’s kind of silly isn’t it now? How can something testify of itself when it doesn’t exist. And when it did come into being and the collection of all of the writings that went into the Bible was approved by the Church it was the CHURCH that gave it authority! Without the Church’s stamp of approval the laity would have never believed its content and neither would much of its clergy. But the whole Church testified that these were the accepted books as holding part of the truth of the revelation of Christianity. But, not ALL by any means. No where in the Bible or otherwise does it say that it’s “Bible only”. To believe that is dogmatic without ANY basis for such dogma except of course the idolatry of protestantism and calvinism…which was a modern man-made invention.
The Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has recreated the very thing Christ did away with on the Cross. When he died and the curtain was ripped, top to bottom, separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, Christ gave direct access to God to his people. No longer did they have to go through some other man or institution to speak to God. If we are found to be in conflict with what Jesus is doing then we better change our stance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox church are guilty of opposing Jesus by requiring people to approach God through the filter of church tradition. No protestant becomes their “own private popes” but they do submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit….just as Jesus intended.
Tom said: “The Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has recreated the >very thing Christ did away with on the Cross. When he died and the >curtain was ripped, top to bottom, separating the Holy of Holies from the >rest of the temple, Christ gave direct access to God to his people. No >longer did they have to go through some other man or institution to >speak to God. If we are found to be in conflict with what Jesus is doing >then we better change our stance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox >church are guilty of opposing Jesus by requiring people to approach God >through the filter of church tradition. No protestant becomes their “own >private popes” but they do submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit….just >as Jesus intended.
What utter tripe! Of course EVERY Protestant is their own private pope. Their own contradictions
Sep 27, 2010 @ 23:11:17
Tom Said: “Where are we told in Scripture that Jesus came to establish his church? ”
Let’s see, that would be when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my Church”. That’s more or less Bible 101. for a set of books you claim to hold on the same level as God, you sure don’t seem to know much about it.
>Tom said: The Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). It is God’s very >words to us. As such, it carries his authority. Rejecting his words are the >same as rejecting him. The church is never described as God-breathed. >It is a creation by God. A tool he uses to spread his word. A tool he uses >to do his ministry. I trust you can see the difference. This does not >make God’s word into an idol…..it gives it the proper respect and >authority
That’s kind of funny. You say that one book of the Bible testifies for the whole Bible that DIDN”T EVEN EXIST when it testified of ITSELF??? That’s kind of silly isn’t it now? How can something testify of itself when it doesn’t exist. And when it did come into being and the collection of all of the writings that went into the Bible was approved by the Church it was the CHURCH that gave it authority! Without the Church’s stamp of approval the laity would have never believed its content and neither would much of its clergy. But the whole Church testified that these were the accepted books as holding part of the truth of the revelation of Christianity. But, not ALL by any means. No where in the Bible or otherwise does it say that it’s “Bible only”. To believe that is dogmatic without ANY basis for such dogma except of course the idolatry of protestantism and calvinism…which was a modern man-made invention.
The Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has recreated the very thing Christ did away with on the Cross. When he died and the curtain was ripped, top to bottom, separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, Christ gave direct access to God to his people. No longer did they have to go through some other man or institution to speak to God. If we are found to be in conflict with what Jesus is doing then we better change our stance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox church are guilty of opposing Jesus by requiring people to approach God through the filter of church tradition. No protestant becomes their “own private popes” but they do submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit….just as Jesus intended.
Tom said: “The Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has recreated the >very thing Christ did away with on the Cross. When he died and the >curtain was ripped, top to bottom, separating the Holy of Holies from the >rest of the temple, Christ gave direct access to God to his people. No >longer did they have to go through some other man or institution to >speak to God. If we are found to be in conflict with what Jesus is doing >then we better change our stance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox >church are guilty of opposing Jesus by requiring people to approach God >through the filter of church tradition. No protestant becomes their “own >private popes” but they do submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit….just >as Jesus intended.
What utter tripe! Of course EVERY Protestant is their own private pope. Their own contradictions PROVE they are their own private pope. Every protestant comes up with his own private interpretation for what scripture means? Why do you think there are 40,000 + denominations? It’s not because they are all looking at the same texts and agreeing with them. What you’re saying doesn’t even make the least bit of sense. Whereas the Orthodox Church has held the same doctrine for 2000 years since Jesus and His Apostles gave us the doctrines to keep! It’s every protestant that comes up with his own “version” of what Christianity is. And this Protestant version of the Holy Spirit seems to be the author of confusion.
The Orthodox Church cannot be in opposition to its founder and with the original doctrines it has held since the beginning. Most of your beliefs are less than a few hundred years old and that pretty much can be proven historically. My beliefs and the beliefs of the Church are from the beginning of it until now. It was the Church that WROTE the bible and decided which books went into it. It was the Church that wrote the creeds and the recorded the doctrines with confusion and heresy arose in it from ignorant men and heretics. They kept the faith and until the Romans split there was pretty much only one church with one belief.
Also your Bible says that no scripture is for private interpretation.
Saint Paul tells us also to stand fast and hold to the Tradition taught to you by word or by Epistle! All of these things your bible says. Yet since you are your own pope and you choose to believe your own view that is not remotely historically valid (in other words a new creation) then you ignore the passages in the bible. You also ignore where Christ gave the Apostles power and you ignore where those apostles passed that power on to others, the power to forgive sins. Where Jesus breathed on them and told them whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and the sins they forgave are forgiven and the sins that are retained were retained.
It was Saint Paul’s letters to Saint Timothy that established the Holy Orders in the Church for Bishops, Priests and Deacons, describing the qualifications. The very Bible that you claim was written in order to abolish any semblence of order with the Church and God and that we go against God because we put the Church “in front of” or in “obstruction” to God…again, you look for dispartiy when there is none.
God gave us the mysteries of the Church as channels of His Grace in order to help mankind. Your own EGO prevents you from seeing that and wanting to rely on yourself … The foolish nonsense of “It’s just me and God” never was and never will be correct.
Another great passage in the Bible was where 2 or more are gathered in my name…. Notice He didn’t say where 1 is gathered in my name. It showed the corporal nature of His Church. The Apostles would not have started Churches at all if it had been against Christ’s will.
Your attempt at having a Christian Faith isn’t much of a Faith at all because everything you have expressed here is disparity and contradiction with your own bible which you worship as if it were God Himself instead of letters and testimonies written by men that the Church as lead by the Holy Spirit DECIDED what went into it and what stayed out of it. Many books were kept out. Some books almost didn’t stay in. Yet, you claim that The Roman and Orthodox Churches are wrong on so many things. If that’s the case why do you trust us with giving you the right bible! Why do you believe in a Trinitarian God. It’s NOT in the Bible. It’s part of the unwritten Holy Tradition. (that we are told by Saint Paul to stand fast and hold to).
Tom said: All I can say is WOW. I can’t believe what I just read. I had to >read it several times to make sure I read it correctly. All I can say is >this: Why would I want to follow a corrupt institution led by flawed sinful >men who claim no need for or dependence on God’s word when I could >have God’s infallible, inerrant, perfect word as my guide? To me the >choice is simple. To any reading this I hope the choice is obvious to you >as well.
The same reason you follow that same “corrupt institution” to give you the Bible that the men who made up of that corrupt institution WROTE.” Seriously, your attempt at logic does not hold at all, completely non-sequitur in your reasoning. Jesus Christ told me in part of that corrupt institution’s book(the Bible) that He would send the Holy Spirit and guide the Church in all Truth.
That “corrupt institution” which is corrupt because of men like you by the way. Arrogant prideful egotists! who think they are above corrupt institutions when they are WHY institutions are corrupt. There’s an old saying. When you find the perfect church, don’t join it because after you do it won’t be perfect anymore and it will be corrupt. The corrupt institution as you call it is also called the BRIDE OF CHRIST. Your blasphemous nonsensical remarks don’t hold a candle of light against the Truth that has been preserved by God’s HOLY CHURCH that He Himself, established. So, while you Poo Poo on the Church that Jesus established…very clearly He established it…think about the thing that Jesus the Son of God established and then Poo Poo on it some more. It is only through Christ’s Church that you know ANYTHING at all about Christ!.
So, Wow, all I can say is wow, because never have such a collection obvious contradictions, falsehoods and nonsequitur logic has been published on one page. Your arguments don’t make ANY sense at all and scriptures completely drive out the darkness of your arguments with the light of the truth. That which is from God. You imply disparity in God’s Church where there is none yet your own arguments that are only a few hundred years old and were you to speak with the Apostles today, they would shoot you down as a heretic and you would be pronounced as anathema.
Dec 24, 2010 @ 18:36:07
The Trinity is not in the Bible? Is that so? Let’s see, there’s the Father, that’s one, the Son, that’s two, and the Holy Spirit. I make that three. Hey! A Trinity! Protestants, unlike yourself apparently, are free to read Scripture AND count at the same time. If you want to talk about what’s not in the Bible, let’s start with purgatory, shall we? Not there. An invention of the Roman church designed to terrify people into buying “indulgences.” How’s that working out? Since your ancient and venerable institutions cannot make mistakes (or admit errors), I guess you must still be selling them. What’s the going rate to cut 10,000 years off my grandfather’s sentence? One Euro? A hundred? Can I buy one on Amazon? If not, why not? Once perfect, always perfect. What a fine tradition. No hint of corruption there, so sir. Just like Pope Alexander VI, St. Bartholomew’s Day, and priests that diddle little boys–pure as the driven snow! How could it be otherwise? It’s your tradition! Oh for the good old days, huh? You could burn us evil Bible-readers by the dozens after Mass, to the greater glory of… ? But, still, I must admit, to be so powerful and rich for so long indicates that the Romans and Greeks must be doing something right in somebody’s eyes. Certainly not in God’s.
Dec 25, 2010 @ 02:17:28
Gosh, you’re pretty stupid. You can count and you say Father Son and Holy Spirit. and you get complete Trinitarian theology out of that?
That really should tell anyone with ANY intelligence at all that you have NO IDEA of what you are talking about.
Bible Readers??? ROFLMBO … unbelievable. You and your multi-million Protestant Popes with all your infallible theology …of course, i should listen to “which one” of you now? and base it on what? Oh, I should read the Bible myself. I do! Ahh, your amazingly pathetic attempt at a point completely and totally shattered again! Wow, and I didn’t even break a sweat.
You judging who is doing right and wrong by holding to the Traditions Taught to us by Word or By Epistle …let’s see that was the words of the Apostle. and that verses….YOUR Words… who …my my my, I just am struggling, WHO should I believe??? It’s such an incredible struggle for me to figure out who to believe, the Apostle of Christ or one of the multi million egomanical protestants who don’t even know the history of their own bible not to mention they deny actual history that ANY reasonable Historian would not.
Complete Trinitarian theology derived from the new testament only huh? MORON.
Dec 25, 2010 @ 02:20:40
Whoa, dude sites one corruption of an individual. A person is sinful so he says the whole Eastern Orthodox Church is imperfect. He REALLY doesn’t know what he’s talking about whatsoever. It’s a shame you can’t require a certain amount of education to post here. You must be a high school graduate or something. Fr. Timothy you were right about this, it’s not really worth the time dealing with idiots.
Dec 25, 2010 @ 15:17:14
We suck our thumbs and other things too.
Dec 26, 2010 @ 16:39:21
Ah, yes. Such wisdom! One of you even stooping so low as to pretend to be me with that thumb-sucking comment! I’m definitely enlightened by your thoughtful responses. Calling people names, ignoring the facts, attacking arguments that are not made, ignoring the ones that are. Such a fine tradition. Got any indulgences for sale? It sounds like I need one! Take a check, or is still a cash-only business over there? Aloha. Have fun. Bless you…
Dec 26, 2010 @ 17:41:55
Oh, bye-the-bye, Friar Tim, you wrote: “Why do you believe in a Trinitarian God. It’s NOT in the Bible.” Nothing about a “complete Trinitarian theology” not being in the Bible. So tell me, in your opinion, is it more moronic for me to correct what you actually wrote, or for you to call me stupid for something I didn’t write? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not only more moronic to attack me for what I never wrote, it’s intellectually dishonest in the extreme (not that that would bother you).
I also notice that you never wrote a single word about the non-biblical origin of the evil doctrine of purgatory. Or did I miss something? Where was that purgatory business again? Book, chapter, and verse, if it’s not too much trouble… Oh, yes! I forgot! You’ve got yourself a purgatory tradition, and that’s good enough for everybody on the planet. Silly old me.
Your problem is clear: You have to either defend or justify every horror and abomination perpetrated by your perpetually immaculately perfect Greek and Roman churches or your entire prideful, idolatrous, plaster-saint worshiping, incense-burning, money-grubbing charade falls apart. But since you cannot do either without looking like a total fool, you do what your kind has always done: call people names and change the subject. If the matter were not so serious your predicament would be comical, but as it is, it is only very, very sad.
I sincerely wish you and yours all the best during this Christmas season, and pray that someday you too will know the joy of becoming a real Christian by grace, through faith, lest none shall boast…
Dec 27, 2010 @ 02:53:08
LOL, the ignorant Protestant thinks you are a Roman Catholic and believe in purgatory.
Fr. Timothy is Orthodox and since you don’t know what Fr. Timothy believes how can you adequately comment on what he has to say? Apparently you can’t. So you don’t know Church history, you don’t know Church belief and you don’t… welll, let me ask you this “Theodore” What do you know?
The Church developed without the Bible. It is not the bible that Jesus came to establish but His Church. The Church is the keeper of the Truth not a Bible. No one ever prophesied a “bible” so that poor little Theodore could educate the world on his personal and apparently divine insight ROFL …
Anyway, the more you write Theodore, the funnier and dumber you seem.
Aug 16, 2011 @ 17:26:14
THE WOMEN IN YOUR FAMILY ARE YOUR “HOLY PEOPLE”!!! THEY ARE YOUR INTERFACE WITH THE GODS!!!
Their role throughout history is to communicate the god’s wisdom so the entire family can progress when reincarnated. Effectively acomplishing this task may buy them a quality opportunity to ascend in their next life.
Your job as a future mother is to learn the god’s ways and to help your child understand despite the negative reinforcement and conditioning of today’s society. Without consciousous parents the child will have no hope, and may even exaserbate their disfavor by becoming corrupted in today’s environment.
Your ultimate goal is to fix your relationship wiith the gods and move on. You don’t want to be comfortable here, and the changes in Western society in the last 100 years has achieved just that.
1000 years with Jesus is the consolation prize. Don’t be deceived into thinking that is the goal.
Much like the other prophets Mohhamed (polygamy/superiority over women/misogyny) and Jesus (forgiveness/savior), the gods use me for temptation as well. In today’s modern society they feel people are most weak for popular culture/sensationalism, and the clues date back to WorldWarII and Unit731:TSUSHOGO, the Chinese Holocaust. They used this Situation to bury Japanese atrocities.
It has been discussed that, similar to the Matrix concept, the gods will offer a REAL “Second Coming of Christ”, while the “fake” Second Coming will come at the end and follow New Testiment scripture and their xtian positioning. I may be that real Second Coming.
What I teach is the god’s true way. It is what is expected of people, and only those who follow this truth will be eligible to ascend into heaven as children in a future life. They offered this event because the masses have just enough time to work on and fix their relationship with the gods and ascend, to move and grow past Planet Earth, before the obligatory xtian “consolation prize” of “1000 years with Jesus on Earth” begins.
The Prince of Darkness, battling the gods over the souls of the Damned.
It is the gods who have created this environment and led people into Damnation with temptation. The god’s positioning proves they work to prevent people’s understanding.
How often is xtian dogma wrong? Expect it is about the Lucifer issue as well.
The fallen god, fighting for justice for the disfavored, banished to Earth as the fallen angel?
I believe much as the Noah’s Flood event, the end of the world will be initiated by revelry among the people. It will be positioned to be sanctioned by the gods and led for “1000 years with Jesus on Earth”.
In light of modern developments this can entail many pleasures:::Medicine “cures” aging, the “manufacture” of incredible beauty via cloning as sex slaves, free (synthetic) cocaine, etc.
Somewhere during the 1000 years the party will start to “die off”, literally. Only those who maintain chaste, pure lifestyles, resisting these temptations, will survive the 1000 years. Condemned to experience another epoch of planet’s history for their ignorant pursuit of xtianity, they will be the candidates used to (re)colonize (the next) Planet Earth, condemned to relive the misery experienced by the peasantry during history due to their failure to ascend into heaven before the Apocalypse.
Never forget:::It is not a house of Jesus.
If this concept of Lucifer is true another role of this individual may be to initiate disfavor and temptation among this new poulation, the proverbial “apple” of this Garden of Eden. A crucial figure in the history of any planet, he begins the process of deterioration and decay that leads civilizations to where Planet Earth remains today.
Which one is it?:
One transitions into the other, allowing the gods to wash their hands of obligation to their Chosen One. My personal “consolation prize”.
And since the gods never committed despite tens of billions in mass media, product development and natural disasters/tragedy they will employ the freedom they positioned into the Situation and CHEAT me out of everything.
Unfortunate for me, the gods can claim they never intended this, despite being control freaks who guide everything specifically and have the power to force it with AI, and now they are free to fuck my brains out, just as they did throughout my childhood.
The gods were pimping me when I was a 3 year-old boy, only to exploit me and cash in decades later.
Pre-pubescent prostitution is rampant in black communities. Now we see where it comes from.
Consistant with “reverse positioning” understand the REAL Second Coming would equate with The Matrix’s Anti-Christ, the fake battle of good and evil which will come at the end.
Understanding how they use the political encviornment to redefine people’s value system, realize anyone who speaks of the old world and its ways will envoke hatred. So when/if the Anti-Christ comes along speaking of reverting back to what liberalism would consider regressive and unfair, it may be the only hope to salvage the god’s favor and keep moving forward rather than begin the 1000 year clock. The fake Second Coming will feed into this political enviornment.
Also consistant with “reverse positioning” recognize the gods will offer a REAL Anti-Christ, also known as The Beast. I have addressed these issues in years past::::
The gods will offer clues throughout every dynaic of life. Geographical features onthe world map is yet another.
The Beast is not a person, as the xtian Bible would suggest. It is a place:::The San Francisco Bay Area. And it refers to the socio-political poison the region exuded in the latter 20th century which promoted indecent behavior among the people whose favor was rapidly deteriorating. This decay spread to other states and countries, fulfilling the region’s role as The Beast of the Apocalypse.
Another feature which the Gods offer as a clue is very foreboading. Mt. Zion is a mountain to the north of the eye of The Beast Diablo and one which has a working quarry at its base. Consistant with the decay we experience in society, Mt. Zion is being eaten away, slowly stripped of its resources, until one day paradise will be gone forever.
10:47a
So many theme oriented movies lately. Pills that make you smarter, now a movie focussed on time, immortality. The gods are taking steps in preparation for the Apocaplypse, 1000 years with Jesus on Earth.
The gods are preying on the people, ramping up temptation and compelling them to engage in behavior which will ultimately cost them.
What I teach is the truth:::The gods extensively use clone hosts and manage Earth through them, people who ultimately are reincarnated into lesser life forms because of their fatal decision.
You’re all falling prey to the god’s royal scam.
Any enviornment/perception can be created with their power. Never fail to recognize the power they have at their disposal. There is NOTHING it can not do.
They still sell “going up” to the reals and their clone hosts, for living on Earth doesn’t sound so appealing to them, nor preditors like my family. But the gods are creating an enviornment which will fulfill their promise made in the Bible to stupid white people and the fools who fell for xtianity.
Navy SEALS helpcopter crash of 8.6.11 was revenge for Osama bin Laden.
So confident in their relationship with the gods. Live in comfort in “the greatest country in the world”, bright future, kids do great.
The gods have sent a very contradicting clue to the families of the 20 Navy SEALS killed in Afghanistan.
The gods did this to you. This is punishment for the evil of your country, killing of a superior in the god’s eyes.
Do you even pray? Have the gods already told you to stop going to church? Because Muslims pray 7 times a day, and you fucking white trash ridicule their favor.
You fell for it. And now you will pay dearly. The United States is the empire of evil.
The clue has been sent. Let’s see what you do with it.
Even with all the corruption of the Republicans this wasn’t going to happen on W’s watch because the conservatives are the good ones. It is the liberal social decay which was the trademark of The Beast, and what has primarily destroyed our favor with the gods.
One day default will bring insolvency, while the wealthy you bailed out with multi-trillion dollar stimulous package leaves you behind in the ruins. When this day comes don’t forget to pray, for the economic devestation and carnage which will surround you will be a deliberate motivator.
Oct 22, 2011 @ 08:23:34
First, I appreciate you explanation on this topic but I have a concern. I believe that the God of Calvinism is not the same God of the Bible but my heart has been heavy lately because I said, “A God that would create someone just to punish them in Hell is evil.” Now the reason my heart is heavy (even though I do not believe that the God of Calvinism is the same God of the Bible) is because I fear that I may have commited blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by saying that. I attributed evil to the actions or intent of God (The God of Calvinism). Now, since there is only one God, could I have made this blasphemy towards the true God (even though my intent was directed towards Calvinisms God) ? I would like to add that Christians on both sides consider that we serve the same God and it is an in house debate but just interprete Him differently which there in lies my problem. Is attributing evil to the character of the Calvinist God (calling God evil) the unforgivable sin or is it something else? I would appreciate your thoughts. Thank you and God Bless…
Oct 23, 2011 @ 16:20:36
James, thanks for your reply. If saying or thinking something negative about God or even about the Holy Spirit in particular was the unpardonable sin Jesus discussed, there would be a lot of people in Hell, including me. I read Matthew 12 when I was 11 years old–and being brought up in a traditional Church of Christ I was quite legalistic. When I read that passage about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit not being forgiven neither “in this world, nor in the world to come,” my mind almost immediately thought “The Holy Ghost is st..pid.” Later I would think “Holy Ghost d…” or “D…d fo.l Holy Ghost.” It became an unhealthy obsession and I cried because I believed I was going to Hell for sure. However, I think the idea Jesus is after is a final rejection of God’s power in Christ as a miracle worker–accusing Christ of casting out demons by the prince of the demons, Beelzebub. This revealed a hardness of heart in the Pharisees that was inconsistent with their repenting later–the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the final rejection of the Holy Spirit. It does not refer to stray thoughts, nor does it refer to some statement said in anger. I do not believe that any mainstream or Evangelical Bible scholar would consider what you said as an unpardonable sin. If you despair and give up or if you say to God, “That’s is–I reject you totally–for the rest of my life,” and you keep that satment”–then you have have committed an unpardonable sin in that you have closed yourself off from God’s grace for life. I wish I could know all the people who struggle with this issue–there is really no need to worry about being damned due to something one has said.
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Jan 02, 2012 @ 10:27:44