As You Like It - Men Becoming Women

I deserve more than an honorable mention.

I don't think this is a debate so much as a vehicle for Arawyn to witness for Jesus and apply her personal beliefs to the subject at hand.

While Christmas is certainly a super time to be doing your quota of witnessing, this is hardly the forum for it, given the variety of beliefs/philosophies adhered to by its members.

Perhaps silent murmurings of the heart are best replied to silently. I, for one, could not care less about the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant or who is required to be believe in what in order to fit the label.

A lot of matters of religion are "written". All equally false or true, depending on your point of view. How silly to try to apply such abstracts to matters of the state and the laws that must fit everyone.
To me, law and the religion of one group of people doesn't even fit into the same debate.

You are my Hero for the day. I'll send someone over to plow your driveway.

Chris is quite capable of speaking up for himself.

No, the feasts are not irrelevant at all. That is merely your opinion. The feasts reveal God and he revealed himself through them and they have great meaning if one studies them. If we didn't have the Old Testament, which shows God laying down his perfect plan for mankind we wouldn't understand a lot of the New Testament. The Old reflects the New.

However, yes the Gentiles are released from the levitical law and we are under grace, there is no disagreement between Protestants and Catholics about that whatsoever. However, Protestants will never say "Your Grace" to the Pope. We disagree about that. God grants grace, not the Pope. Protestants fought with their lives to bring the truth to light for all peoples to read and judge for themselves because the Roman Catholics NEVER wanted the scriptures spoken in any other language but Latin and the Catholics did not want any peasant reading scripture, only the Catholic hierarchy were allowed to read scripture until Martin Luther was finally successful at translating the scriptures into German and allowing all peoples who wanted to to read the scriptures for themselves because the scriptures do not say only the Pope and the Roman Catholic church can read the scriptures let alone interpret them as they see fit. And or say things that aren't even IN scripture at all. It was a way of keeping the peasants in the dark as the Roman Catholic church continued to build it's empire paved in gold and jewels. Others before Martin Luther were burned alive for writing the Bible in other languages before Martin Luther was successful.

No, I've offered to take this topic to another forum where it's more appropriate and I've offered several times. But it's up to the mods to close it and they haven't. So if you don't want to read what someone has wrote just skip it because I do. I don't have time to read everyone's post on a forum.

The feasts are irrelevant to the new covenant. That's what I meant. Or to put it more clearly, they have no bearing on salvation. I mentioned it because you said they are commands. I don't know if they were or weren't but, if they were, they were commands under the old covenant and don't apply under the new.

The gentiles weren't realeased from levitical law - mankind was.

The feasts are irrelevant to the new covenant. That's what I meant. Or to put it more clearly, they have no bearing on salvation. I mentioned it because you said they are commands. I don't know if they were or weren't but, if they were, they were commands under the old covenant and don't apply under the new.

The gentiles weren't released from levitical law - mankind was.

I thought that too at first, but now I wonder...

She did say something about how she roleplays various points of view.

I was planning on finding her inworld and tickling the truth out of her.

You're darn tootin' !
Christian concepts such as the Mother-Wife, God begetting himself, Mary, a saviour, the resurrection etc predate Christianity by thousands of years and are shared by a huge number of ancient and modern religions/beliefs/myths.

Tracing these common roots among various civilization is, to me, one of the most fascinating explorations into human history and sociology. Much is to be learned from the evolution of these beliefs (and the creation of Christianity) once one gets past dogma that tries to turn "faith" (the belief in what could be) into "truth" (the knowledge of what is).

I like that. Thanks Lindal.

First of all, my first marriage was annulled after six years, after my Catholic wife paid me to sign a piece of nonsense. There have been annulments on the basis of intent in the marriage 20 years after marriage and part of it on the definition of consummation within the meaning and intent of the Catholic Church, and the annulment was recognized by the civil courts. A couple of these happened to be by famous politicians or actors.

Second, to deny the massive amount of biblical scholarship by the roman Catholic church is nonsensical, and nothing else. It is hard to study modern Christianity without beginning with the scholarship of the church, which includes Aquinas (and earlier) and moves through Merton and Brown (and perhaps Kung) and beyond. Simply put, no other church has produced as much scholarship as the RC church. You don't have to agree with it and I personally believe it is like the flying buttress - the scholarship is required from the awkward weight of Christian beliefs in general. And yes, Merton was a scholar working within the church - his Contempative Prayer, which I personally consider his best work, was produced as part of his position as a church scholar.

A medieval pope has little to do with why the Protestants and the Catholics are still separated. First of all, apostolic succession is now recognized by several liturgical churches. The Apocrypha would not be enough of a barrier. Transubstantiation is a bigger problem, as is the nature of Papal authority (unless they caved on this since I left and stopped paying attention). Just how much real scholarship have you really read?

This doesn't mean that American Catholics ("Old Catholics" are separate from Roman Catholics...they are still one and the same religion or church. From the American Catholic Church website:

"The "Dominus Iesus," was issued during the reign of Pope John Paul II, June 16, 2000, and signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, August 6, 2000. Refer to Section IV: Article 17:

"Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in the communion with him. The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches...""

http://www.accus.us/

Sooo, you have something against Celts and Hearth worshiping Heathens. Damnably discriminative on your part, I would say. The Gods and Goddesses blast you, you hide bound traditionalist...

Unfortunately- or fortunately depending on ones point of view- faith is often negated by study and facts. When one explores other concepts and actually allows for enlightenment, thinking takes over blind faith. Some still do come out the other side as believers, but it is often not the case. I was cured of religion long ago myself. It seemed to me the Greeks and the Romans all had believed very strongly and here we are millennia later, treating their believes as myths- therefor it seemed obvious to me though i am sure not to many, that our so firmly held believes wd one day be relegated to the same stack of myths.

I have a great book for those not afraid to explore history called When God Was a Woman. Fascinating reading.

No sir! My apologies, I simply am not familiar with it therefore cannot comment on it- same for Asian gods and goddesses, Africa, North American other than Kokopelli of course! There is much I do not know. (You realize now I will have to go explore that, don't you?)

Oooh and "The Alphabet Versus The Goddess" by Leonard Shalin is also excellent.

True. I correct that point regarding the law, though there were early Judeo-Christian sects who wanted to uphold both, both the law and grace. And a discussion on the law is not that simple. It's very complex and I can direct you to another forum where you can go to discuss the law and it's separate parts, i.e, cleanliness, moral, etc. A lot of the law we still adopt in our current society. The law is not done away with altogether, it's merely that we've been granted grace by God's sacrifice that we are pardoned because a human keeping all the law is a burden and very hard to do. This is a Christian belief and does not mean I believe that Orthodox Jews are breaking the Levitical laws. They very well could be keeping all of the law and some claim to do being such.

However, regarding the great feasts, yes very important indeed as God revealed himself through the great feasts, otherwise he wouldn't have commanded them. Quite interesting to study if you are interested.

Thanks- I will look for it.

Clarification noted, and imprecation rescinded, if possible, having no real control over the Gods and Goddesses.

And a chance to apologize for misspelling 'Contemplative'. 'Contemplative Prayer' by Merton is a great small book on the mysteries of prayer and meditation.

OMG YES - QFT !!!!

*one user agrees

Totally unrelated comment to the current portion of the thread. While I love ale almost as much as I love dark chocolate, I am finishing a large bottle of what is called "Chocolate Stout". For the record. in my opinion this is an unfortunate waste of both chocolate and stout. Falls into the 'interesting at best' category. If it weren't a Yule present and I'll be seeing them tomorrow, so I want to say I finished it, I don't know. Pouring any beer but light beer down the drain is against much of my religion.

That sounds like a religious definition or your personal view. It sure is not a legal definition where I live.




They can seek an annulment rather than divorce in SOME states - in others, it is not a valid reason for annulment.



Sorry, I don't do much organized religion crap, so I can only debate the legal aspects of things.

I'm not interested. I'm merely correcting your errors.