Quote:In Christian Forums, they try to accommodate all Christians and they don't allow fundies to call people like me a non-Christian. Under their rules, as long as a person accepts the Nicene Creed, he's a Christian. Come on, as an altar boy, I grew up on the Nicene Creed. I can say it backwards while holding on to a huge, heavy silver candlestick, which is what I have always carried as an altar boy and I've always complained about because large cathedrals usually have very large candlesticks and they're really heavy. I really wish they could use fake silver. It'd be lighter.

Gee, you're a sly little bastard ain'tcha. Or perhaps just very confused.

I suggest you consider poiitics as a career.

(September 9, 2012 at 8:12 pm)padraic Wrote:

Quote:In Christian Forums, they try to accommodate all Christians and they don't allow fundies to call people like me a non-Christian. Under their rules, as long as a person accepts the Nicene Creed, he's a Christian. Come on, as an altar boy, I grew up on the Nicene Creed. I can say it backwards while holding on to a huge, heavy silver candlestick, which is what I have always carried as an altar boy and I've always complained about because large cathedrals usually have very large candlesticks and they're really heavy. I really wish they could use fake silver. It'd be lighter.

Gee, you're a sly little bastard ain'tcha. Or perhaps just very confused.

I suggest you consider poiitics as a career.

Politics isn't my cup of tea. I'd rather take holy orders. It will be great to be a bishop. You get a castle to live in and you sit in the House of Lords. And all you do all day is to talk about metaphors. Ho Ho Ho! I could do that all day.

(September 9, 2012 at 7:57 pm)greneknight Wrote: A lot of misunderstanding is definitional. I happen to define God in a very different way from most people.

Good for you!
In my book and I think Dodgson's as well you are a good egg.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Through the Looking Glass.

(September 9, 2012 at 7:57 pm)greneknight Wrote: The problem comes with most people because they have a DIFFERENT understanding of "God". So, when I say, "Jesus is God", they take Jesus to be an entity and God to be another real entity.

Assuming Jesus is God, would that exclude the idea that Jesus was a man also? Or is he still nothing but a metaphor?

(September 9, 2012 at 8:23 pm)Rayaan Wrote:

(September 9, 2012 at 7:57 pm)greneknight Wrote: The problem comes with most people because they have a DIFFERENT understanding of "God". So, when I say, "Jesus is God", they take Jesus to be an entity and God to be another real entity.

Assuming Jesus is God, would that exclude the idea that Jesus was a man also? Or is he still nothing but a metaphor?

I know the former Archbishop of York in my church wrote an article about why Jesus never existed at all. But I don't agree with him. I think Jesus probably existed. You can be both a man and a metaphor. For example, you can take me to be the paragon of guilelessness. So greneknight is a real person and greneknight is also a metaphor for guilelessness as Padriac will vouch for. You can use it in a sentence as in "Jesus looked at Nathaniel and said, "Truly there is no one who comes closer to greneknight than Nathaniel". (Note: Nathaniel was the chap Jesus said was the most guileless in the whole of Judea).

So then, according to your statements, if Jesus is (1) God and (2) a man and a metaphor, then that would mean that God is also a man and a metaphor.

Would you agree?

(September 9, 2012 at 9:07 pm)Rayaan Wrote: So then, according to your statements, if Jesus is (1) God and (2) a man and a metaphor, then that would mean that God is also a man and a metaphor.

Would you agree?

Oh, I get what you mean. No, God is a pure metaphor. A pure metaphor can never be a human being because a pure metaphor does not exist in reality. A man can be also a metaphor for something.

A good example is Truth. Truth can't be a man because truth doesn't exist in reality. But a man can be metaphorized into truth eg you can call me Truth and I'll be perfectly fine with that.

---

Guess what? My alterego in CF is now in high dudgeon and accusing me of being an impostor. Read this thread: http://www.christianforums.com/t7685356-4/#post61361823

Greneknight, of course I am you in CF. We are one and the same person.

did someone get busted?

It's odd that you state God is a metaphor for goodness, but then don't believe in goodness (goodness is subjective).

It seems that a hypocrite is less tolerated in an atheist community than in a Christian community.