But first I have to be able to read it? It's very impenetrable stuff, with lots of unnecessary capital letters, and couched in olde worlde language, to mimic other scriptures perhaps. No-one has a duty to read anything?
'An Affair On Golgotha' -- a refutation
- Thread starter RJM
- Start date
As I read through the comments posted on this thread, and another, in the recent days gone by, I am becoming more perturbed by them. To the extent they ever were conversations they are more and more becoming shouting matches, diatribes, people talking at one another, not with one another.
I find myself in the unenviable - and uncomfortable for me - position of having to play the adult in the room. Trust me, I'm the last person in the world who should be playing the adult in the room, but to paraphrase Hillel, if you find yourself in a place with no adult in the room, be that adult. You folks are all too old to be sent to a time out chair to cool down and reflect. Instead, I will recommend you make a nice hot cup of tea and find yourself a prune danish to eat.
While you enjoying the goodies one thing you might reflect on is the conversations we had a while back about the use of "in my opinion".
(For those wondering, I am, in fact, paraphrasing Hillel.)
I find myself in the unenviable - and uncomfortable for me - position of having to play the adult in the room. Trust me, I'm the last person in the world who should be playing the adult in the room, but to paraphrase Hillel, if you find yourself in a place with no adult in the room, be that adult. You folks are all too old to be sent to a time out chair to cool down and reflect. Instead, I will recommend you make a nice hot cup of tea and find yourself a prune danish to eat.
While you enjoying the goodies one thing you might reflect on is the conversations we had a while back about the use of "in my opinion".
(For those wondering, I am, in fact, paraphrasing Hillel.)
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
King James English was chosen for translation. Apparently it is the best match for the poetic rendition of Arabic and Persian.
It is as easy to read as one's motivation dictates.
Yes as there is no compulsion in religion. We all get the same choices.
Regards Tony
Two things:
1. We do not seek to convert others to our own faiths here ("no proselytizing")
2. You will only stay if we listen to your point of view? But by leaving, you would deny us the same courtesy of listening to ours! ("No soapbox speeches")
There is lucid and beautiful poetic writing in the Baha'i corpus. Google "The tablet of the wondrous Maiden" for one of my favorites.
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
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Deliciously ambiguous!
One thing I noticed about many Baha'i interactions on interfaith forums is how easy it is to perceive your doctrine of continuous revelation as condescendingly co-opting older faiths. (One thing I learned about most Atheist interactions on interfaith forums is how we tend to come across as condescendingly understanding other people's gods better than they do, which is a show of disrespect I try to avoid).
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Wow...step out of the room for a minute and come back to a food fight!
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Good on you in your positive attitude to others.
The Key to what I offer, is it is not my understanding, but a Message from Baha'u'llah. That Message is what we need to unite the world, or it is not.
I approach it in a manner that I see the Message is what we need.
Such is the quandary we all face.
Regards Tony
The quandary you face in this particular forum is way more specific: How do you harmonize your need to deliver your message with the forum's agreed norms of conduct (not seeking to convert, not engaging on one-way preaching)?
You see, in here we are all able to talk about our views, comparing, contrasting, showing what we love and find convincing and profound about them, mostly without an attitude of expecting others to come to the same conclusion as we, or an attitude of shaking the dust off our sandals if they don't.
Hint: Anyone can point to some sacred scriptures and expect others to read them. Only you can show us how you read them.
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
So Lets try an example.
How would you read "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens". Would it be any different from the way I read it?
Most statements speak for themselves and they will be the answer for a divided humanity, or they will not be.
My opinion would be that the statement, if considered, opens the door to unity.
Regards Tony
This is an oft-asked question when discussing physical resurrection, and of course we cannot know with absolute certainty the state of affairs until they unfold, but Scripture itself offers a path to answers if one contemplates the text.
The first clue is in the post-Resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene:
"When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing; and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her: Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, thinking it was the gardener, saith to him: Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith to her: Mary. She turning, saith to him: Rabboni (which is to say, Master). (John 20:14-16)
Another is the appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
"And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know him... Cleophas, answering, said to him: Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?" (Luke 24:15-18)
They tell Him, and He explains the events to them, but still they are unaware until:
"And it came to pass, whilst he was at table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him: and he vanished out of their sight." (Luke 24:30-31)
In John 20:19-25 we have the account of His physical presence in a locked room, but close attention to verse 20: "he shewed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord." Later He appears among them again, and addresses Thomas: "Then he saith to Thomas: Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered, and said to him: My Lord, and my God." (v27-28)
And again: "... Jesus stood on the shore: yet the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: Children, have you any meat? They answered him: No..." (John 21:4-5)
Again and again, Christ is at first not recognised, and then is. With the Magdalene, it's when he calls Her by name; With the disciples on the road, it's when He celebrates a Eucharist; With the disciples, it's when He shows them His wounds.
Jean Borella says it best:
The Spirit dwells in the world, but the world is less real and less perfect than the Spirit. At the very least there is a degree of the world — precisely the one which we are experiencing — whose imperfection crushes us and leads to death.
To be seen, and to be corporeally present, is all one. My corporeal presence is my visibility, but my visibility is not my own; it belongs to every gaze, unbeknownst to me and without being able to do anything about it — an ignorance and impotence constituting the every essence of my visibility. Thus, no one is master of his corporeal presence, and, even more, to be corporeally present is not to be master of this presence.
(After the Resurrection) Christ's body is still the instrument of presence in the world of bodies, but, by a total change, it is no longer of the essence of this presence to be passive and involuntary. The soul which inhabits this instrument is entirely master of it and makes use of it at will. Christ can actualize the corporeal mode of His presence according to His own decision and as He judges good. The relationship that He entertains with the corporeal medium of His presence has been completely transformed.
Christ is no longer seen, He causes Himself to be seen. This is exactly what the Gospels teach, and which so many modern exegetes are incapable of understanding. Christ glorious is not 'above' the world of the senses, except in a symbolic sense. Simply put, He is no longer subject to the conditions of this corporeal world. His bodily presentification becomes, then, a simple prolongation of its spiritual reality, entirely dependent upon this reality (whereas in the state of fallen nature, it is the person's spiritual reality which extrinsically dependent upon its bodily presence), a presentification which the spiritual person may or may not effectuate, as freely as human thought can, in its ordinary state, produce or not produce such or such a concept or sentiment.
Bingo.
But it's all a bit too 'mysterious' for some, imo.
However, the idea is known in Eastern religion.
- wikipedia -
Surely, one could put one's hand through a spiritual body. A material body, on the other hand, would be very real.
"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
Luke 24:39
They were surprised to see him. They thought that he was dead. That's all. No mystery.
Why people have to resort to illogical blarney, is beyond me.
[ Are leprechauns spiritual or material?
]
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Why do you say that? What do you know about a spiritual body? Are you the spiritual body expert around here?
If the corporeal Jesus Christ could raise the dead and calm the storm and walk on water -- which literal passages I believe the Quran does accept, along with Noah's Ark, etc -- don't you think the resurrected Christ might be capable of dealing with such details as taking on a physical body, and then leaving it at will? After all, there were angels doing it all the time, such as when they appeared with the Lord to Abraham and ate dinner with him. (Gen 18) Or the one that Jacob wrestled with? (Gen 32:22-31)
And Christ is higher than the angels.
And then there is still the transfiguration (Matthew 17) already mentioned several times in this thread. However it's easier to pick out the bits that fit, and disregard the ones that don't -- a lot like Mr Garaffa does. It's like trying to move water with a sieve.
Or even deliberate misunderstanding. Which is even worse, and which is why there's no more to be said here, as far as I'm concerned.
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Umm .. isn't it obvious?
"touch me and see" implies that one's hand would NOT pass through .. as opposed to if he was a ghost/spirit.
Of course, if you want to define Jesus as fully human and fully divine..
..and that a hand would pass through and not pass through..
..then you'd be right.
I don't know why a person would insist on religion being incoherent.
If religion is incoherent, then it doesn't really matter what scripture might teach .. you can always interpret however you like, claiming that it is a mystery.
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You ignored the rest of my post. 'The Lord' ate with Abraham. Actually I think you're just deliberately misunderstanding. And it's impossible to have a proper conversation with somebody who keeps doing that. This is a waste of time ...Umm .. isn't it obvious?
"touch me and see" implies that one's hand would NOT pass through .. as opposed to if he was a ghost/spirit.
Of course, if you want to define Jesus as fully human and fully divine..
..and that a hand would pass through and not pass through..
..then you'd be right.
I don't know why a person would insist on religion being incoherent.
If religion is incoherent, then it doesn't really matter what scripture might teach .. you can always interpret however you like, claiming that it is a mystery.