suzeonline

You can label yourself a secular humanist, earth worshiper, naturalist or whatever you like. You still however like every other human on this planet is in desperate need of God's mercy and forgiveness. Denial does not change reality.

Dear George,

Referring to supernatural mumbo-jumbo was provocative and pejorative. I should have used other words in that and referring to the Holocaust as applied Christianity.

I apologise for both usages. Regretfully I reflect the behaviour of those whose ideas I find abhorrent.

Christianity, Judaism, secular humanism and most other worldviews are complex.

However, saying that the roots of antisemitism are found in Christianity is simply fact. Some Christians examine their tradition, confront what they find wrong and try to change it for the better. Pope John XXIII, Basilea Schlink and Bishop Spong are examples of Christians who have confronted Christian antisemitism. Some Lutherans have been very thorough at examining their past in that area. H. G. Haile, a Lutheran, wrote a biography of Luther which thoroughly explored Luther's antisemitism. Fortress Press, the Lutheran publishing house, published "The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation" by Heiko Oberman translated from German. Unfortunately it doesn't always get to the average parishioner as these matters are not usually discussed. I was talking an Australian Lutheran clergyman who had studied at St. Olaf's Seminary in the US. St. Olaf's considered many areas which I thought clergymen in general were not concerned with. I asked the minister which of these ideas he discussed with his parishioners. He answered that he didn't want to disturb their simple faith. The minister has since left the clergy and his faith. Maybe some of his parishioners have also left their church since they may have wanted more than simple faith.

Unfortunately there is a tendency to divide humans into we/they. I know a Marxist in Sydney who has stated: "Real Marxists don't beat their wives." "Stalin was not a real Marxist" (That reflects Philo's statement: "Hitler was not a follower Of the teachings of Jesus." When someone belonging to your group acts in a manner to which you object you deny he is a member of your group.) This Marxist has an eschatological view and has spoken of a final battle in which the Marxist forces will defeat the forces of reaction

Philo wrote: "Laws were a human construct, whereas social conscience and judgment based in love are a divine construct." "Again Jesus taught the laws were made for men for moral boundaries; and not thet man were made for laws as posed by Judaism." "Many today consider themselves SH merely to excusing their behaviours from social responsibility."

This is just another way of saying. What I believe comes from God and what you believe does not come from God. I see as subtexts in his statement, Jews follow the law, but Christians are divinely inspired. Christians are social responsible. SH are not. We are good. You are bad.

If one reads the Jewish Bible one can see that the law to a great extent proceeds from "social conscience and judgment based in love." The New Testament condemns those who do not believe as Jesus does. Both religions have many of the same attitudes in them, but they also have separate views. I find the usage Judeo-Christian offensive as it erases the differences.

There is the notion of 'the new human'. New societies are formed which have a new beginning. We are all products of our past, and it is the insights and attitudes we have gained in the past that become part of the new human.

In "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality" by Andre Comte-Sponville, Comte-Sponville writes of the attitudes derived from his Catholic background and his retention and rejection of these attitudes. One attitude he has retained is a feeling for the spiritual. The last section of the book asks if there can be atheist spirituality. His answer is ‘yes’, and I learned about his concept of spirituality. As an atheist he does not believe in an afterlife or immortal soul. He claims it makes death less frightening to regard merely as the end of existence. It was all new to me since I never believed in an afterlife or an immortal soul since it was not in my religious background which regarded death in the way that Comte-Sponville regards it as an atheist.

re john 14;6

In all of his.."I am" statements,..including this one,..His use of the phrase.."I am"..was in direct reference to what God told Moses at the burning bush.

Moses asked what he should say if the Israelites asked what God's name was,and God answered,.."This is what you are to say to the Israelites:..I AM has sent me to you'(Exodus 3:14)."

The significance of the use of "I am" would not have been lost on the listeners of Jesus' day.

read it in context of jesus creating the xtian..'place'

cite John 14:2..and suggest that the "many mansions" may refer to the heavenly palaces in which Hindus and Buddhists will dwell..alongside Christians...in the hereafter.

14“Do not let your hearts be troubled...Believe in God,..believe also in me.

2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places....If it were not so,.would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

3And if I go and prepare a place for you,..I will come again and will take you to myself,..so that where I am,...there you may be also

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=gd&q=Jesus+was+a+Jew+%3F&hl=en-GB&rls=MEDA,MEDA:2008-36,MEDA:en-GB

JESUS WAS NOT A Jew
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jesusjew.htm

Jesus Himself was not a Jew(Judean) or resident of Judea,..He was a Galilean or resident of Galilee(Matthew 26:69; John 7:41),..and a Judahite or descendent of the Tribe of Judah.

The Judeans of prominence..were not of the Tribe of Judah,..but of Edomites...Pilate was being ironic when he wrote the sign.."Jesus of Nazareth,..King of the Judeans" for the Cross (John 19:19).

That is,.."the Galilean who was King of the Judeans,"as in "Queen Victoria of England,Empress of India."

Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee.. His disciples were fishermen from the Sea of Galilee...And although He visited Jerusalem,he spent most of His life in his home country of Galilee.

John 7:1,.."After this Jesus stayed in Galilee;..for He could not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him."..His followers were constrained "for fear of the Jews"..(John 7:13, 19:38, 20:19).

Why was this?

Psalm 83:3 says God's elect are "hidden" or protected ones,..and that they are under attack from a coalition of evil groups led by Edom. Who was Edom?

Esau, the brother of the patriarch Jacob,..became the ancestor of the people called Edom,or Idumea.

The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, XIII ix 1; XV vii 9 instructs us: John Hyrcanus forcibly assimilated the Edomites as a national group and they became "Jews" in about 120BC.

The Jewish historian Josephus,..who lived just after the time of Christ, wrote,.."They[Edom]..were hereafter no other than Jews'.

The Jewish scholar Cecil Roth in his Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (1980)says on page 154,"John Hyrcanus forcibly converted [Edom] to Judaism.

From then on..they were part of the Jewish people. In the Talmud the name of Edom was applied to Christian Rome,..and was then used for Christianity in general".

extrtacted from link

Shh! No-one tell the Christians that the Bible contains a misattributed hodge-podge of ancient Greek rationalism.

I upsets them mightily to realise that the morality they believe to be god-given was constructed by toga-wearing polytheists and proto-secularists.