my goodness, thats the closet ive ever heard you to come to a good old praising on the Lord. Careful, you might give the impression you actually believe in something greater than yourself.
Its really ok to have faith in God and still practice Judaism. Ive asked around.
My point here is that we have a thread about Christians claiming that Christianity is in fact Judaism, and that Judaism, therefore, really does not exist, except in the sense of an "error." To believe the latter is a regrettably common point of view within Christianity; to believe the former, however, seems to be nothing more or less than willful ignorance of the historical development of the two creeds.
Define God? He's the perfect, omnipotent, creator. Ruler of the Universe, maker of all things, The great "I am". The whole ball of wax. You know, the Father. The guy you guys worship in Temple, remember?
Tell me if I have fairly understood what you mean when you say God:
1. He is perfect
2. He is all-powerful
3. He is the creator
4. He is the ruler of the Universe
5. He is 'the great "I am".'
6. He is a colloquialism for "all things," i.e., The whole ball of wax.
7. Another colloquialism followed by a biblical apellation: "you know, the Father." Used by both Jews and Christians, although Christians use this at least two ways - the traditional Jewish usage, as a father to all (as in
Aveinu Malchenu, "Our father, our king" -- but also in a specific Christian way, in which God is the father of one individual, "his 'only begotten son.'"
8. Finally, God is the God Jews worship in temple.
8 is particularly interesting, since you believe that God must be defined as the Jews worship Him. As we see in (7), the Jews worship God in temple without inclusion of Jesus as any sort of messianic or intercessory figure.
While the theology of Jewish worship may be broad by comparison with the later-evolved cosmology/theology of Christianity, it does not include the worship of Jesus.
And so, yes, I find myself particularly in agreement with you on definitional counts 7 and 8. (The other terms, while broad, work well within my own theology. I doubt we agree on what we mean by
these terms as well, but that's off-point.)
If you are saying that you do not believe in Jesus' role in the Trinity, or Jesus' role in forgiveness of sins, your definition is an interesting twist. I do not think that is what you mean, but that is the conclusion these terms lead to. Do you mean that to be the case?
Truth? I know in this day and age its popular to say we all define our truth.
What is popular is irrelevant.
So if theres a pizza and I say there is a pizza its ok for you to say, no, its my truth that there is no pizza, and so to not offend you, I must back off and say, oh, ok, i dont want to push my truth on you by saying there is a pizza so lets just say, for me, I believe there is a pizza, but thats just me.
"If" indeed. Although I will note right now I sort of wish there were a pizza, despite the fact that I only want one slice of the pizza because I'm already full anyway. We are such a perverse species.
thats really a lot of garbage. Belief means you know it to be true, otherwise you are just blowing around in the wind, which most people do, btw.
We're back to what most people do and how wrong they are. But you now change the term from "truth" to "belief," making your statement less relevant. Interestingly, in going from "truth" to "belief," you are specifically moving from the objective and absolute "truth," to a subjective, individually defined truth you were just railing against. But you
also embrace a circular notion that "Belief means you know it to be true," so you've defined another term entirely by your as yet undefined word, "truth."
But now you drop the preamble:
Truth means its real, its the truth. God is who He says He is. The Torah is true, the rest of the Old Testament is true. The New Testament is true.
You've now actually posited something like a definition, buried in this otherwise logically circular statement. "Truth means it's real" could potentially mean something, if I know what you mean by "real." Let's say it means not illusionary, solid, possessing some ontic reality. Let's furthermore use your aforementioned pizza as an example of something real. After all, we can not have a world where you say there is a pizza and I just close my eyes and wish it away.
In other words, the aforementioned pizza is, at least in the example, real. So the pizza is true. My chair is real, so it is true. God is real, so He is true. The Hebrew and Greek bibles both have ontic existence, so they are true. Similarly, the Quran, the Baghavad Gita, the Tripitika, and
Mein Kampf. They are all, by this definition, true.
You add, "God is who He says he is." I take it that this is the case whether we mean the multi-manifest God of Hinduism, Allah, the God of the Jews, or the Trinity of the Christians. I have not said you are wrong, mind you. But now we are stuck guessing as to whether "God is who He says he is" through one tradition of holy scripture, all the traditions, or none of them (that is, God being who He says he is, in the tradition sense of speech.) Or all of the above.
What I believe would be helpful to you is a stricter definition of "Truth" rather than just "thereness", prior to enumerating examples of things you believe to be true, since you have set such a low bar for truth. Unless, of course, your belief is closer to the syncretism of, for example, the Bahai faith.
Now, someone who practices Judaism should have no problem not only claiming there is a God, but because it says so in the Torah, there should be no problem in the concept of worshipping that God, and speaking of that God.
Of course not. That is not my purpose in this thread, however; nor do I like to expose my belief to ridicule on the part of the weak-minded. This is a personal preference, although I will further stipulate that language is a pretty dull instrument to express religion (something I believe you encounter as well.)
My purpose here, rather, is to determine the right or lack thereof of the apostate to evangelical Christianity, to the claim of representing the "real" Judaism.
Intellect is fine, but dont mistake Faith for simple enthusiasm. I have given you reasoning, scripturally based ( written by Jews before Christ was born) that I have used to support my faith. So I have both.
Your earlier thread notwithstanding (I believe we differ in our impressions of the powers of persuasion and reason you displayed there,) your answers here appear, as yet, incomplete at best.
You have expressed only attempts at the intellect, which without the Faith, is self reliant and not in tune with the practice of Judaism.
God save us all from self-reliance! First of all, I have noted my faith in various threads, though I should not have to. So your slander is noted but accepted for what it is, an attempt to discredit a difficult adversary. Secondly, we're not looking to prove or disprove PFnV, but his arguments. Thirdly, your assumption that self-reliance is incompatible with religious expression (particularly Judaism,) is questionable; but it is unimportant, as the statement as applied to me relies on the introductory slander.
Before you act like a victim and cry slander, this all started with a link giving reasons why a Jewish person could believe in ************. I never singled YOU out but you reacted like I did and started calling me an anti-semitic and telling me in no certain terms I was in no way practicing any kind of Judaism.
So ive just pointed out the other side. fair enough I think.
Too late for that. You'll have to take precautions against me or others "crying slander." To wit, stop slandering on such a regular basis. It is, after all, one of the ten commandments, the whole bearing false witness thing. Have a good read over what I've said here, 3. Ask yourself whether you are right or wrong in your assessment. And for God's sake, let's just move on, because I don't give a fiddler's fart about it, honestly. It's too transparent. But I don't think you even know you're doing it, though it would be nice if you realized the tendency and monitored it.
I do understand the points you wanted to make, but I think you've been sloppy in making them. Beyond that, I'm not sure we've moved much further along on the thread's title topic.
To wit, I maintain that evangelical Christianity is not, in fact, Judaism or a form thereof, and that this is why the two developed as entirely distinct religious traditions.
I also think it is worthwhile to make the point, since the opposite and erroneous point has been claimed on these threads.
Thanks,
PFnV
