I'm confused by this whole 10 Commandments thing and its relationship to forgiveness...

[BolivarianHero]

So if I'm saved or born again (I'm not sure about the difference.) and I plan a fake prom to keep some heathen lesbian girl out or I make up a story about Charles Darwin having a deathbed conversion in an attempt to discredit a theory that contradicts my religion's creation myth, does that balance out to whole bearing false witness against my neighbor thing? Is Lying for the Lord exempt from the exigences of the 10 Commandments? If what I did was wrong, can I ask my bearded White Hebrew Sky Daddy to forgive me and do it all over again as many times as I'd like? If I'm saved and show up at the right megachurch to the right people, will Jesus give a shit about any of this hard stuff anyways?

[msongs]

1. you can commit any "sin" u want and get away with long as u are born again before you die nt

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. With one exception.

Blasphemy.

The ONLY unforgivable sin.

I'm screwed, but I am in good company.

[Deep13]

8. Not blasphemy generally, but a sin against the Holy Spirit.

When I was a teenager, I used to worry that I had--without meaning it--offended the HS in some way thereby dooming me to hell for eternity.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Mathew 12:31 & 32

12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

12:32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

There there is the verses from Leviticus;

Lev 24:13 thru 16;

24:13 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
24:14 Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
24:15 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.
24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.

And let's not forget Samuel;

2nd Samuel 12:14 & 15

12:14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
12:15 And Nathan departed unto his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick.

It is more than that just unto the Holy Spirit. Basically, "don't say things about god that we don't like" is pretty much enough to screw you over.

I should know. After all, I am a Heretic! I have been a professional practitioner of blasphemy for quite a long while now. Of course, one has to buy into the idea that there is a real and actual place of eternal torment that some supernatural, transcendent super-being sends you simply because you called him names, (or called him on his superiority) while at the same time believing there is a place of eternal paradise where even the most vile, horrible and murderous may enter, if before they die, they simply say and believe a certain group of magic words, for any of this bronze-age gobbledegook bullshit to have any effect.


http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/blasphemy.html

[eleny]

2. Trying to figure out their many hypocrisies is like being on the Wild Mouse ride - forever

[malaise]

3. Listen if you give the pastor, priest, whoever10% of your salary

every month, you'll be forgiven to the grave. Wink, wink!!!

[BolivarianHero]

5. But...

What if my tithe to the 700 Club goes to diamond mines in Liberia? Does the Biblical argument for slavery make me a better Christian?

[malaise]

7. I'm an atheist so I cannot

help you out, but I just have a feeling that Jebus wouldn't have been happy with Pat Robertson or slavery

[Axle_techie]

6. The only commandments for a Christian (one who follows the teahcings of Christ)

are to love God, and to love your neighbor. This is of course paraphrased because I am tired. The way I understand it, for sins to be forgiven, you must repent, not just ask occasionally. To repent literally means to have a change of mind or spirit towards God and toward sin. It means to turn from your sins, earnestly, with all your heart, and trust in Jesus Christ to save you. We of course will continue sinning as we are human, but we need to realize that we are human and not get down on ourselves about it, but keep persevering in our attempt to be perfect.

Oh, and God is probably neither bearded nor Hebrew, and Jesus was probably darker skinned similar to arabic or african. Keeping a lesbian from prom is a sin because it does not display love, nor are we supposed to judge the actions of others. As for Charles Darwins deathbed confession, wouldn't know, wasn't there, don't really care. His is a theory, and one that I at least partly agree with. Evolution is real, and the evidence of it is everywhere, but that does not disqualify the existence of God to me.

[Deep13]

9. 17 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: ..."

"...I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

"18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Matt 5 kjv, or the Catholic (NASB)version...

17"Do not think that I came to abolish the (A)Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

18"For truly I say to you, (B)until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished."



"1Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

"2Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

"3All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."

Matt 28 kjv, Or NASB version:

1(A)Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples,

2saying: "(B)The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses;

3therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.


I submit that the Old Testament is as canonical as the New. Further, the various letters and Acts are at least as canonical as the included Gospels. I also submit that a Christian is one who believes that belief in Jesus Christ is the means for redemption and salvation in order to escape death.

[Axle_techie]

10. Well, the belief is in how you choose to interpret

Matthew 22:36-40
(36) "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" (37) Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' (38) This is the first and greatest commandment. (39) And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (40) All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The meaning of the word Christian is "follower of Christ". My personal belief and interpretation is that it means to do as Christ did.

[Igel]

16. Yes, it does.

"Johnny's the smartest student in my class. Greta's almost as smart. All the other students depend on these two, even though I only have two students."

[Axle_techie]

19. um...

what? How does the student thing equate to anything?

[blueworld]

11. Because the "old law" requires every jot & tittle be paid for however

Jesus is the law of grace. Not instant forgiveness, grace.

"If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to them the other also". "If someone sues you for your coat, give to them your cloak". "Pray for those who use you". Etc.

Fulfilling the law, IMHO, means that if I sincerely learn that lesson in my heart, a few jots & a couple of tittles may be credited to my account.

Hardly Glenn Beck - I think of Atticus Finch.

[lazarus]

14. I agree, however

I have seen an interpretation that the Law Jeebus was talking about was Judaic Law, and therefore only applicable to Jews, not Gentiles. I don't buy this, as he never makes a distinction.

There's lots more he talks about that's required to follow him, like giving up all your possessions and abandoning your family, that modern Christians conveniently manage not to read.

[DeSwiss]

12. You can ignore Yahweh....

...he http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QWwzT4ulkA">stole the 10 commandments from others anyway, so what he said about them doesn't even count.

[Igel]

17. You confuse first attestation and similarity

with origination and identity.

There was a recent argument over the ethnic affiliation of haggis. The earliest attested recipe was in a English cookbook from, IIRC, the 16th century. Therefore, some argued, it was first found among the British and only later taken into Scotland.

Of course, printing and book-writing was more extant among the English than the Scottish at the time, so if haggis were equally common among the English and Scots you'd still expect it to be first attested in an English book. However, you're unlikely to need a commonly made dish in a cookbook if space is rare and cooking techniques are passed among family members and neighbors.

Decades back, on the basis of Romance languages, some scholars reconstructed proto-Romance. "Italon," I believe, was the name they gave for this language: vocabulary, morphology, syntax. They also placed its origins long before it was attested, when Classical Latin, you'd think, was being taught. Thing is, a lot of mistakes found in Classical Latin at the time had errors that tended to reflect Italon. Still, it was only when numerous graffitti were found actually containing these words and word-forms, graffitti written hundreds of years before the words were otherwise attested, that it was clear that Classical Latin was the formal, written form and the populace spoke something increasingly different. First attestation was far from earliest use, something that should be fairly obvious.

Moreover, how a lot of other writings are interpreted tends to be difficult to accept given the context or even the actual wording of the documents. I've looked at some of the "sources" and wonder if similar shifts between modern legal codices would be taken as evidence of borrowing or if it's just an indication of knee-jerk anti-exceptionalism or even racism. "Gotta be borrowed. Them there peoples jus' too danged interferior to come up with sumtin' like this here writin'."

[DeSwiss]

20. Syncretism. n/t

[struggle4progress]

15. It's not an effen vending machine: it's an attitude towards the human condition,

reflecting a view that we ought to be better than we are, that we cannot begin to become better than we are without recognizing our faults, that we will never be able to perfect ourselves, that despair at our own imperfections should not lead us to abandon the endless task of attempting to improve

[Igel]

18. I know how you feel.

I'm confused by DU's relationship to this HCR thing and its relationship to illegal immigration.

I mean, there's got to be just one view on both and one clear connection between the two topics, right? Well, no. We know that there's a diversity of opinions, even if most people think there shouldn't be.

"They" are like "us." My church's views on the 10 commandments and forgiveness differed from other churches'. In fact, among other churches sets of doctrines there are differing opinions.

My church said we were forgiven at baptism (adult baptism, mind you), but knowing and intentional sinning was counted as denying the Holy Spirit; sinning out of weakness or out of misunderstanding was readily forgiven. We'd annually rehearse our commitment when we took "communion" at Passover. Death-bed repentance on a large scale was generally viewed as a kind of repentance out of weakness and not an expression of actual intent. However, there was no church penalty as long as what you did wasn't so egregious and well known as to get other people saying perhaps it's not so bad.

This is not a standard view. Many churches believe that once saved you're under grace. Somehow intent doesn't matter; if God saves us, how can he be so weak as to allow us to damn ourselves? Others believe that intent does matter, and if you fall from grace you need to be restored to be saved; God may save us, but he's not going to trump what we want.

Then there are divergent views of the 10 Commandments. Some believe some have been altered; some believe they've been expanded and made harder; others believe that most are simply done away. Some believe that they're 10 of the only 12 commandments ("Love thy God" and "Love thy neighbor" being the first two) in force. Others believe more are in force--perhaps just those that Jesus mentioned, perhaps more, perhaps less.

As to the relationship between them, some assume that if we're always forgiven and justified by faith the Russian proverb applies: The law is isn't written for the righteous, i.e., the commandments apply to only sinners. Some argue that we're subject to them unless we repent, but repentance is fine and readily available. Others argue with James, that if you're forgiven and believe, you're going to demonstrate those beliefs in action; for some, it's the struggle to do this that matters, others say that it's the actual actions that matter.

These attitudes and interpretations and arguments aren't always randomly associated with each other. Usually sets of doctrines will have very nice, neat correlations between different kinds of beliefs (forgiveness, theodicy, definitions of righteousness and right behavior). Then the contradictions seen from outside reduce primarily to constructs by people outside who don't understand how the various systems work and cohere, but all the outsiders have done is set up strawmen nowhere attested in a set of beliefs, at least not one held by a major denomination.

Often you wind up with believers who have faiths and sets of doctrines at odds with the church they go to, sets of beliefs they haven't actually tried to systematize and make fully coherent: We stupidly say "they don't actually know what they believe," but it would be more accurate to say that "they don't know what their church's official doctrines are" or even "they don't agree or concern themselves with some of their churches official doctrines." Sometimes, esp. with small churches, the church's doctrines as a system will be mildly incoherent: Often this works out over time, as more people examine interrelationships between doctrines and bring the various chunks of theology ever closer into mutual alignment--then the inconsistencies are manageable and look like mainstream faith-based assumptions. Some denominations are so based on emotion or "divine revelation" that even the larger interconnections are never worked out--or, if they are found to clash obviously and importantly, it's deemed completely acceptable and God's ways inscrutable because doctrine in the sense of a systematic theology isn't what the organization is about.

[AlecBGreen]

21. Im confused by your question

Are you truly confused about the relationship between sin, repentance & salvation? Or are you asking a rhetorical question to mock the beliefs of others?

If its the first, let me know and I can offer my opinion on the matter. If its the latter, I have to ask "Why are you here in the R/T forum?"

[Bad Thoughts]

22. "White Hebrew Sky Daddy"?

If you're looking to be "saved", you need to look for your deified-human-on-the-cross-elevated-by-Europeans daddy.