- Topic
Is there anyone out there that has ventured down this road of Gnostics or something along the line of what the guy on youtube channel Tosentv is talking about? I take and interest in learning all that I can learn because I feel through knowledge we will all become more obedient to GOD. We have to fail at something in order to learn how to succeed. I failed when I entered the WMS but I succeeded on my exit. But the road has been so bumpy because now I will not return to a church. If I did return it would be a more social event and it would be as if I am bearing witness to the activity.
If any of you have a belief that is not the norm(other than satanists) I am interested to learn or read about it. WMS has made me a person that must seek the truth. I come here to the forum from time to time hoping for more evidence to the falsehood of the WMS and at the same time we should speak truth here so the people reading may find the reason to leave because critism and exposing doesn't always intrigue the sheep.
I'm just curious, are you guys looking into this to strengthen your faith or discourage your faith? Please check out the book Case for Christ as part of your discovery process.
I am trying to find out the truth and use it as a basis of defending my faith. There is no problem on my faith in God, only my faith on religion. lol.
In my mind I don't like religion. All of it seems to be man made. God came down to Earth, lived with us, and died for us in order to re-establish a relationship with us. I don't think it was his intention to create religion. The relationship between you and your creator is what is truly important. I could care less about what brand a church goes by. Recently I asked someone I work with if he was a Christian. I know, asking someone straight out like this seems crazy. I'm tired of just trying to play it safe all the time. He responded, well I'm Lutheran. I said, "What does that mean? Do you believe that Jesus died for you? That he's Gods son? Do you love him?" He answered yes to all of those things. I don't get it. What does being Lutheran have to do with the relationship between God and man?
All people belongs in a religion, even athiest have religions. Let's just say that religion is short for "I believe or don't believe that God exist and that He is etc…and we should etc…".
The problem with religions is that they have their own set of ideas of what God is like and they live their lives conforming to that belief.
honestly I think the whole relationship not a religion argument is bogus. All theistic religions are relationships with their believed god. Even the Bible speaks of true religion.
I agree with Simon on this one. If you truly value your relationship with God, you can't be contended with half-truths. Sooner or later you go searching for more and encountering other religions tend to lead to arguments -or shall we say debate, when your views are different from theirs. You have to defend for what you believe in and you must have a basis for it. There is only one God and there is only one truth about God that you must follow.
Truthorlies2012
Is there anyone out there that has ventured down this road of Gnostics or something along the line of what the guy on youtube channel Tosentv is talking about? I take and interest in learning all that I can learn because I feel through knowledge we will all become more obedient to GOD. We have to fail at something in order to learn how to succeed. I failed when I entered the WMS but I succeeded on my exit. But the road has been so bumpy because now I will not return to a church. If I did return it would be a more social event and it would be as if I am bearing witness to the activity.
If any of you have a belief that is not the norm(other than satanists) I am interested to learn or read about it. WMS has made me a person that must seek the truth.
I've been doing a little research which I hope will help you with the truth. As always I want you to take this information and research it for yourself! Check this out. Let's start with the Gospel of Thomas: According to this gnostic book salvation comes through a special, secret knowledge. You have to be worthy to receive that knowledge. (Secret knowledge? Only the worthy? Sounds cult like doesn't it!) The Bible says "Salvation" comes through faith in Jesus. It's a gift from God that you cannot earn. How about this little treat out of the Gospel of Thomas: If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirit. I'm sure that we can all see how this doctrine doesn't match up to the other Gospels. Let's try a different gnostic book. How about the Gospel of Mary? "Salvation is achieved by seeking the true spiritual nature of humanity within oneself and overcoming the entrapping material nature of the body and the world." Did you catch that? It's not the Holy Spirit coming to reside in you it's the spitirual nature within oneself. You are your own god? Wow, throw this one out! Next book: The Secret Gospel of Mark. This book suggest that Jesus had a physical union with a young man as some sort of secret initiation rite. This doesn't match up with the Word of God. This is a good one: The Gospel of Judas! That's right, Judas. This gnostic gospel claims that Judas Iscariot was Jesus' greatest disciple, that he alone was able to understand Jesus most profound teaching, and that the two of them conspired to arrange for Jesus betrayal. If this was true why would Judas ever kill himself? He would have understood that Jesus would be back in a few days and the idea that the two of them set this up would have taken a lot of the guilt off of Judas.
Ok, starting with this experts use a series of questions to determine the validity of a document. 1) When was it written? 2) Where was it written? 3) Does it reflect the culture of the time?
The Gospel of Thomas: Experts estimate that this book was written later than 175AD which obviously means two things. 1) It was NOT by the apostle Thomas and 2) it is not a first had account of the teachings of Jesus like the four Gospels of the New Testament.
The Gospel of Mary: This book was written between 150 and 200AD. Most experts agree on this. we run into the same problems as in the gospel of Thomas. (Just an FYI for you Da Vinci Code buffs: There's nothing in the Gospel of Mary that would suggest that Jesus and Mary were married or had children. Sorry.)
The Secret Gospel of Mark: This was a Hoax perpetrated by a man named Morton Smith. This should give you the information you need to research this hoax for yourself. I'll leave it at that.
The Gospel of Judas: Carbon-14 dating puts the earliest papyrus writtings to around 220 – 340AD. Experts estimate that the origional prior to 180AD. This comes from some historical writtings when the church father Irenaeus warned that this "fictitious history" was floating aroud. Debunked even back then.
I've given you a lot of information here. Please don't take my word for it! Do your own backgroung on this information! Seek after the truth! I hope this information helps you to throw some of the garbage teachings out of your life.
Elievalkyrie wrote:
There is still a controversy. In all of his 15 writings, only seven are considered to be genuine.
When we started this conversation you argued against his writings. Now you are saying you will allow seven of them? If you are still uncomfortable with this particular church Father, you are free to choose from any of the others whose writings may be less controversial for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Fathers
Elievalkyrie wrote:
Hmmm… When you said that you didn't saw anything I copied from the angelfire site, did you read everything or did you just scanned it?
I used ctrl+f. It's usually pretty accurate. Did you double check me?
Elievalkyrie wrote:
Personally, I don't care if its from a Christian or non-Christian, its reliability should just be taken into consideration but until proven false, we should keep our opinions to ourselves.
i do not understand your meaning here. thank you for clarifying.
ttr wrote:
Elievalkyrie wrote:
There is still a controversy. In all of his 15 writings, only seven are considered to be genuine.
When we started this conversation you argued against his writings. Now you are saying you will allow seven of them? If you are still uncomfortable with this particular church Father, you are free to choose from any of the others whose writings may be less controversial for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Fathers
I did not argue against ALL of his writings. What I mean is that since many of his writings are in doubt, the authenticity of his other writing can be looked at with suspicion also. But I will allow the "experts" when they said seven are authentic. Or are you going to accept all of the 15 writings just because some were accepted? I don't have problems with the Church Fathers, if proven authentic, their "writings" can be accepted.
Elievalkyrie wrote:
Hmmm… When you said that you didn't saw anything I copied from the angelfire site, did you read everything or did you just scanned it?
I used ctrl+f. It's usually pretty accurate. Did you double check me?
Right now, I am in no mood to go back to a discussion that has been done weeks ago. I forgot about this topic already but I would just like to say that you may have "ctrl+f" the wrong phrases or I may have phrase the words differently. I do that sometimes to be better understood, copying the thought and not the actual words.
Elievalkyrie wrote:
Personally, I don't care if its from a Christian or non-Christian, its reliability should just be taken into consideration but until proven false, we should keep our opinions to ourselves.
i do not understand your meaning here. thank you for clarifying.
What I am trying to say is that just because some information is from a non-Christian, it doesn't mean that it is not true. There are people that study this kinds of things afterall. But until proven false, regardless of what they believe in, we must take the information they provided into consideration. Hope I made sense here.
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