Morality without god

By now you ought to be able to answer this yourself. God didn't change, the Law didn't change, but Jesus Christ came and paid our debt to the Law, THAT is what has changed. Not God, not the Law, but the circumstances we are in with respect to the Law.The Sabbath too, the day of rest on which no work is to be done, including picking up sticks, is fulfilled in Christ, in fact Christ Himself IS our Sabbath Rest. "Come unto Me and I will give you rest" He said. That's our Sabbath Rest, in Him. We may still honor one day in seven as a special day for worship and rest from our labors nevertheless, but it is no longer a commandment enforced by the death penalty for those who are in Him.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, the WHOLE point of the Old Testament was preparation for Christ, the promise of His coming and so on (Jesus said it was all about Him in Luke 24), therefore all about the fulfillment of the Law through Him to save His people from eternal damnation. His coming was not just "another miracle" in other words, but the whole plan of Redemption from the beginning. Gays may have forgiveness in Christ if they repent, but as I said, the Law has not changed, homosexuality is still a sin worthy of death and without repentance an unhappy eternity awaits.I myself have the question whether outside of repentance and belief in Christ Sabbath-breaking remains a sin in the same way. I haven't found a discussion of that anywhere.AbE: Interestingly I just ran across Calvin's claim that the Sabbath was never for all people, but only for the people of God. He seems to have been a lone voice for that point of view, however, as most take the view that the Sabbath was in place from the Creation itself, because God rested from His work on the seventh day. So if I don't accept Calvin's view I still have the question whether the unbelieving world is also held responsible for the Sabbath as all are for all the moral laws.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I believe it is most likely demonically inspired myself. I'm certainly aware that homosexuals experience having no choice in the matter, that it's just something that happens to them. Many sins are described as punishable by death in the OT, so I don't know where you are getting your assessment of some more than others. I would agree that homosexuality is a particularly difficult case, but there are solutions if people are willing to pursue them. But not based on the Bible, which is the only true authority for Christian belief. The Bible is clear that all human races go back to Adam and Eve and are all brothers and sisters. The Mormons were wrong from the beginning. They aren't Christians. They believe in a false God, a false Christ, a false salvation, so nothing they say about race has any Christian basis either. I'm well aware of all those developments and they are all apostate, all deny the clear meaning of scripture. The only source I'm aware of is the Bible, which you apparently reject. But perhaps you are aware that it wasn't very long ago, a matter of four or five decades, that stores were all closed on Sunday in America, perhaps elsewhere in "Christendom" as well. Well, the Bible is the Bible, you take it or leave it. Or twist it to suit yourself if that's your thing of course. It's in the Bible, OT, that's the only basis for my comment, I didn't write the Bible. As long as I'm true to God I know it is He who is the hated one and I am honored to share in His shame.People who are struggling with homosexuality should be given all the help possible of course.Would you agree with me that there seems to be an increase in the incidence of homosexuality over the last few decades in the West? I believe that can be explained from the first chapter of Romans, which appears to outline the degeneration of a culture from the knowledge of God through various stages, homosexuality being the last stage. Having stores open on the Sabbath was one of the early stages, banning prayer from the schools, legalizing abortion, bringing pornography under the first amendment, banning the Ten Commandments from public display and all the rest of it, are all part of the degeneration of America and the West in general from a previous acknowledgment of God, all a coming under of God's judgment.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, of course I credit God with opening my eyes, not myself for "accepting" anything, but just to go along with your view of it, OK, I'm happily "responsible" then because I know it to be Truth. But of course I know there is nothing unethical in anything God does, and that such a belief is blasphemy, the "enmity to God" scripture says we all have before we are saved. I read the Bible to learn from it and to be judged by it, not to judge it as you do. You can't intimidate me that way. It's this degenerate society that is responsible for such things, for the homosexuality itself and for the suicides. I almost laughed out loud at the very idea I would ever feel I was "entitled to respectful consent" from anyone here. The lack of fear of God is hair raising. I didn't say "number," I said "incidence." He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh....And blah de blah blah blah. Again, I didn't not say "number," I said "incidence." But you go on and on as if I did. Uh huh, and that's the very thinking that has brought us to this degenerate state. It's only going to get worse, but I suppose you'll blame that on natural causes too. Or maybe on us Christians, we seem to be a favorite target for finger-pointing accusatory denunciations these days. So down down down went the West under God's judgments.AND THEN YOU ADDED THE FOLLOWING: You know, all I said was that people who are STRUGGLING with homosexuality should be given all the help possible. I did not imply that it should be forced on anyone. I've never had a problem with unbelievers choosing to live as homosexuals. There is no need to make an issue of it. BUT what has happened is they are forcing their beliefs on the rest of us, demanding legal accommodations and marching in parades and forcing us all to do THEIR will. Besides being an affront to people who believe it is sin, when laws are put in place to make us all regard them as normal and even sanction their marrying, which could yet happen across the nation, that brings God's judgment down on all our heads.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It WAS a sin to pick up sticks on Saturday if you were one of God's people the Israelites, but it no longer is a sin for God's people the Christians or anybody else as far as I know.

Progressive Revelation as far as I understand it and believe it applies to an orthodox understanding of the Bible, and i'm not entirely sure of that, but just for the sake of argument say it does, has no implication whatever of God's CHANGING anything, it's only an accumulation or building up of knowledge from revelation to revelation, a deepening of the revelation of the Messiah to come with new facets to be appreciated. If it is used to imply change other than that brought about by the actual appearance of the Messiah then it's not within Christian orthodoxy.

Well here's how it works. Demonic influence is part of God's judgment. Demons acquire rights to influence and possess people based on the degree of sin among us. It all goes back to when Satan deceived Eve and earned the right to become the "ruler of this world" along with all his demon hordes who set themselves up all over the planet as the "gods" and "goddesses" of various religions, demanding propitiations and worship and gifts and sacrifices and whatnot.Since Christ came the demons have been somewhat subdued, to a great degree in the Christian West, and their strategy here has been to convince us that they don't even exist. Clever, huh? But over the last few decades we've been rejecting Christianity, allowing all kinds of sins to proliferate in the society, legalizing many of them and so inviting God's judgment against us more and more.The great influx of Eastern religious gurus in the 70s brought hordes of demons into our midst, and the more we entertain such demonic religions and vilify Christianity and legalize sin the more demons we get.As always the only solution to God's judgments is repentance, turning back to Him, etc etc etc. That's available to everyone. If it isn't done we just get more judgment, more sin, more evils, more demons.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I said was it was my IMPRESSION that the incidence had increased, I didn't make a scientific statement of it, and I merely asked you if you agreed. You apparently don't but you misrepresented my statement so the whole thing got garbled.Christians don't kill people, Christians GET killed, it's our calling. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Of course it's very sad to me that Ireland has lost its Christian character if that's true. But I know there are still believers there.As for the early Christianity of Ireland not having anything to do with Roman Catholicism, I think there's quite a bit of evidence for that, for instance Phillip Schaff's History. This linked page goes into quite a bit of detail but about halfway down it makes it clear that Ireland had a strong church from about the sixth century on {Look for the line "The earliest native and foreign sources show a flourishing church in Ireland in the sixth century."} that they did send out missionaries and that Roman Catholicism didn't take them over until about the 1100s.I don't think we need to debate any of this, I'm not up on all the details myself and there isn't much more I could say.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I understand the Celtic church was big on monasticism, and that it was monks who were the missionaries. Beyond that my impression is that they believed the same basic doctrines I believe, rather than the Romanisms Protestants object to. But perhaps you could show me otherwise.AbE: That page I linked makes it pretty clear that Rome had NOTHING to do with the early Irish church, so it wasn't "semi" independent of Rome but totally independent.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Of GREGORY'S time. If that is "Pope Gregory the Great" this was before the RCC even existed as such, and although the RCC has since bestowed the title of Pope on him, he was not called Pope at the time and in fact he repudiated being called "Universal Bishop" saying anyone accepting that title would be the forerunner of Antichrist.The Irish church was independent of Rome in those years both literally and doctrinally.

"Point of agreement"???? With what? I wasn't presenting the title "Pope" as the ONLY anything, more as one indication that the RCC didn't yet exist and that its doctrines at that time were not yet the abominations they later became. Gregory the Great was the Bishop of Rome, one among many, making no claims to higher authority over the rest of the churches, which is what the title "Universal Bishop" meant to him, the forerunner of Antichrist as he called it. This very claim was later realized under the title "Pope" -- the claim to be the ruler of all the churches. The RCC as such is thought by many to have been inaugurated after Gregory the Great, in 606, and I think this is because at that time the claim to be the preeminent Bishop ruling over all the others was declared despite Gregory's warning.So the title "Pope" IS important, in fact crucial to the development of the RCC.I don't know when all the characteristic RCC doctrines were introduced, seems they came one after another over time once the basic structure was in place, i.e., the papacy, which itself acquired power after power over time, but that's a study in itself that I'm not up on.I was simply stating my impression that the church under the Bishop of Rome was not yet different from the other churches in the time of Gregory the Great, and not yet putting itself above the others. If you have specific information otherwise, I'd be happy to consider it. I'm sure this is just your own wild opinion based on no evidence whatever. Or, produce the evidence please. The Irish Church, like the English church, was not established by Rome at all, but by evangelists independent of Rome, such as Patrick. He was NOT a Roman Catholic, and as I said the RCC as such didn't even exist yet anyway. The RCC simply co-opted him when they took over the Irish Church and claimed him as their own, dressed up his image in that ridiculous Bishop's pointy hat, which in reality he certainly did NOT wear EVER. I've read enough about Patrict to know that he was a rustic and had nothing to do with Rome, and the churches he founded, or helped found in Ireland had nothing to do with Rome. This is why the early Irish Church is called the Celtic Church, it was NOT Roman in the slightest. They came from the evangelists who brought the gospel to them, such as Patrick. They may have developed some home-grown features, but again you are just blowing hot air, an opinion you got from who knows where. I don't know enough about their doctrines to know what I would or would not agree with. Perhaps Son Goku will come back and fill us in about this. My only claim in this discussion is that none of the early Irish Church was connected with Rome. Period.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Anything the RCC says about Patrick is suspect.I'd done a post on a book about Patrick's life at my Faith's Corner blog a few years ago, and here's another one on my Catholicism blog where I link to a talk by ex-priest Richard Bennett who makes it clear that the RC view of Patrick is a complete fraud.ABE: As Bennett makes clear Palladius was NOT Patrick but the RCC blurred them together. Patrick himself writes about Palladius who was a Roman missionary who came later. So Schaff got it wrong, and Schaff is considered to be a Romanist so that figures.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not according to everything I've read and heard, except that they WERE contemporaries but Patrick came before Palladius. He did become a bishop but in his own Celtic church. Again, Rome had nothing to do with any of it.The impression I get is that Patrick made such a profound impact on Ireland over at least fifty years of evangelism and church planting that there's no way he could have been confused with the Rome-sent Palladius.I just listened again to the talk on Patrick by ex-priest Richard Bennett that I'd linked at my blog about Catholicism: The Real Saint Patrick because I thought he'd said Patrick himself wrote about Palladius. But this time I couldn't find that statement. I may have to listen again later.But he does list many historians who say that Palladius was not Patrick, that Palladius was sent by Rome AFTER Patrick had been there many years and established hundreds of churches, that Patrick's teachings were Bible-based and that Palladius was not successful at imposing Roman Catholic doctrine on the people. This does imply that there WAS a distinctive Roman Catholic doctrine in 432 when Palladius went to Ireland, which surprises me. In any case Bennett makes much of the date 405 as the year when Patrick went to Ireland. If you want to hear that statement it's at about 20:14 minutes into the talk, and he goes on to say that it's important because of the claims about Palladius, which he as an Irish Catholic had grown up believing. He names many historians as source for this information but the sound quality is bad so I missed some of it and may have garbled others: at 20:20 he mentions an Irish bishop who gives this information, then historians Wylie, Ussher, Ware and others.The quote you give about "Palladius" gives no hint about any of that.AbE: Almost forgot to mention that he saysl, about 29:45, that the monasteries Patrick established were not like RC monasteries, but were places for intensive study of the Bible and training of missionaries, and that the monks later went back into normal life, married and so on. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So you believe that report, obviously written from the RCC point of view, and I believe mine. "Most modern scholars..." as opposed to Bennett's "The best historians..." The facts are no better on your side than mine, though I'd say mine are most likely more trustworthy because I know the RCC loves to twist history.I guess anyone who has learned that Catholicism is false Christianity is a Catholic Basher, according to you, the easiest sort of slam against honest people who learn facts that make them change sides. But Richard Bennett is no basher, he presents facts and history, period, and he loved his Catholic Church and still loves his Catholic friends, who of course he would like to see saved instead of on their way to Hell. You ought to hear his story some time, it took him years to get up the courage to leave the RCC after learning about all its errors.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.