Reviews for Thou art the Potter, I am the Clay

Reviews For: Thou art the Potter, I am the Clay

Ari Loriele Evyone 2004-10-10 ch 1,	abuseHey, I really have to say that I totally have to e-mail you about this, but let me state some things here first. 1. You can not look at only chapter 9 of Romans. There are so many other verses and chapters that support what Paul is saying. 2. If you are going to argue this, you have to look at the verse which says that the Bible is God's own words, He merely used men to write them down. In other words, God told Paul exactly what to write. 3. God can not contradict Himself, even if it seems that He does. The topic you have picked is a hard one. Most will never completely understand it. God's ways are higher than ours, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. 4. Recheck your meaning of the word "Just". 5. Free will and free choice are not once mentioned in the Bible. I have searched and searched for those terms, but I cannot find them anywhere in the bible. 6. I have a question... or a few. What turns you away from Christianity, or a belief and full trust in God? I really don't understand it and I would like some insite into the matter. Thanks, hope you read all this. Sarah
Aillil 2004-07-27 ch 1,	abuseEye opening and very well-written. The part where you were discussing the illusion of free will definitely reminded me of the Oracle from Matrix Reloaded (if you've seen it, you'll know which part I'm talking about). I found this essay to be extremely interesting, as I have questioned these things myself. Though I am a believer in Christ, It's sometimes difficult to accept some of the things in the Bible (in fact, just about all of Leviticus-esp. the part where they talk about women being unclean and say that you should never talk or go near a women when she has her period because you will become unholy like them for one week...). I definitley have had past problems with this verse from Romans about God hardening our hearts against Him. I did a bit of Bible searching and it seems to me that this would only happen if you have denied him numerous times--I guess he basically says "Okay! Your choice!" and leaves us alone after that. If you haven't denied him at all or that many times this can be reassuring--however, one must ask "how many times is too many?" I'll have to admit I'm not the best follower and that I've strayed from the path many times. It's scary when I try to come back to Him and I don't feel like I'm getting any response. Anyway, this essay definitely agreed with many of my thoughts. I loved your idea of our soul as a blanket and God as the weaver--even though it was pretty sad to think about this creating the illusion of free-will and such. Keep writing! -Aillil
Seeker of the Way 2004-04-27 ch 1,	abuseOh, we are going to have intellectual fun together! I invite you to join my new forum (see my profile, it is my new homepage), you will be a great and needed addition! * So much comes in my mind. FIRST very intelligent and well-written essay! You did a good job here! * OK ... with the blanket model it makes you sound like a Calvinist. They believed in Determinism, meaning we are born to go to heaven or hell and there is nothing we can do about it because God sees all time and knows our path. All you could do wsa lice your life as IF you were chosen to go to heaven, ie. do good works pray, etc. I do not beleive this ... exactly. For I do beleive in Free Will. I have a short katauta posted about this. I think that god HAS to have us freely * BUT! the whole essay rests on PAULs words. Well, not to worry! I am here to tell you I have ALWAYS had trouble with Paul's words. They are the antithesis of Christ's, are they not? That always bothered me and so I always wanted to ignore his writings (they make me shudder). HA! I was RIGHT! * 1) All these writings from Paul are letters and are not meant to be part of the Bible, they were found, and then added. They are not sermons, they are not visions, they have nothing to do with theology or God's Plan! They were simply added to the bible by the closed-minded hard-hearted low-soul comitte, the SAME committee that failed to add all those books we see mentioned in the Bible but never get to read (The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jude, etc -- you know the Bible more than I do - hehe). So, these are NOT religious texts adn therefore we may safely throw them out. * 2) Paul should NOT be a Saint! You falsely beleive that his words mean something but they mean nothing to Christianity. To beleive them and follw them you cannot also be a Christian, but instead be a Paulian. A Christian follows the teachings of Christ (thus the clever name CHRISTian) and none other. Christ gave us two commandments, supplanting ALL other laws and commandments, etc. These are a)love god above all others and b) love our enemies. So, either Paul is right and we can and should hate hethans pagans sexual deviants etc or Christ is right and we are to love all and judge none. * 3) What makes it even EASIER to discount Paul altogether, besides my above points, is to do a little more digging into Paul. Paul, it turns out, is not even a Christian. He is an opportunist, a salesman. Here is the rub, and there is a source to this: Jesus' own family called Paul a heretic and a lier! That's right, they DENOUNCED him as a non-Christian, he got black-balled! Well, he was not about to have his good reputationi tarnished so he went off on his own and invented lies and spate out his own hatred and gross misunderstandings of Christ's teachings (some also say that Paul himself was gay, and to put off such rumours he wrote very anti-gay material) for his own use. * So, as you can see, ALL of Paul can be thrown out, even the anti-gay remarks. I have a separate essay entitled "Why Christians Should Not Hate Gays" that I wrote in a online journal and so I shall soon post it here! I think you will find it most elucidating! Again, it is a style that I am directed to write, my natural inclination is to write with evidence and sources as per my college-prep and collegiate educations trained me to do. This new way states ideas without sounding like I am REALLY judging becasue the reader either believes it with their soul or they do not. Then they cna go out on their own and research my ideas for them selves. * May I invite you to change your status? I was once Methodist, then non-denominational, then agnostic. Lok again at this word "agnostic" what does it consist of? "a" and "gnostic". well, is "gnostic" a real word? Yes! Now look up hte pre fix "a-" and the most common definition is "without" as in "asexual". So, this means you are without gnostic. Waht is gnostic? Gnostics mean KNOWLEDGE, my friend! It is SEEKING, KNOCKING, ASKING as Christ asks us to do (in Matthew is it not). This goes along with teh older phrase "God helps those that help themselves." Many early Judeau/Christian sects are known as gnostic "knowledge questioning over blind ignorant faith". Christ himself was most likely gnostic Many see that he was a follower of John the Baptist, am I right? They were gnostics called the "Essenes". Also, there were the Cathars of Southern France. A holocaust destryed them via order of the Pope! He was asked what teh Cathars looked like? They did nothing special to their bodies and wore no special clothing and the vilages they were in integrated with them smoothly so you could never really no who was cathar and who was not. The Pope's answer? Kill them all because "God will know His own." And so whole villages were decimated, women and children! Members of the Knights Templar did come to their aide, but it was not enough and it was a holocaust in every sense of the word. NOw, you should now, that the Catholic Church (and if you think about it ALL protestant Christian religions) came from Paul.. Nothing in the Bible says we need a Pope. Well, the Cathars had nothing to do with Paul and said that thye were Christ's Yoke (yolk?) and they folowed his teachings of Love Al which they called AMOR. Now, can you see that the Roman Catholic Church was based in Rome, which in Roman is spelled Roma? and can you see how ROMA is AMOR spelled backwards? So, the Cathars belived that the RCC, founded by Paul, was anti-christ ian! The RCC did not agree to disagree, and instead to murder their enemies ... not very Christian. This is not meant to disparage Catholics, of course! "Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do." as christ supposedly said. * Humbly submitted to you for further thought by -> ~ "Truth Seeker, Truth Knower, Seeker of the Way" (from Ancient Egyptian mysticism (see the Tahuti Foundation), which Christ hikmself studied.
Formerly 2004-04-15 ch 1,	abuseOkay. For once I'm not going to argue with Christianity itself, merely state that Paul was completely insane. Whether or not the rest of the Bible is true, Paul was a psychopath with delusions of grandeur fortified by the church.

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