₦airaland Forum

Ihedinobi: . . . . @Enigma, what does the expression mean?

It means "Lord have mercy"!

frosbel: It was when he was conceived of the Holy Spirit through the WORD of GOD.

Thanks.

Kyrie Eleison.

frosbel: I was shocked in another thread when . . .

And then our Trinitarian brother said Jesus existed as the second part of the trinity before he came to earth.

This brought fear and tears to my eyes. . . .

2. If Jesus Christ existed as second person in a Trinity, then the whole purpose of the gospel is defeated because it means that the word of GOD did not become flesh and this in my opinion is wrong.


Brethren, what is so hard in accepting that God begat a Son in the flesh through his Word , this Son scarified his life for you and me through the Spirit , died , rose again in bodly form and now has the keys of hades and death to give eternal life through the Spirit to all who will place their faith in him.

Why are we following the doctrines of men through the teachings of our institutions.

Consider this , please do, let us not be part of the apostate church .

thanks.

Is this taking things to a whole new level?

Could you please clarify what exactly you mean? Especially:

- when did Jesus first come into existence or began to be?
- was it when He was conceived of the Holy Spirit or when He was born?
- or did He exist before He was conceived and born?

Clarification will help to understand you and not misrepresent what you are trying to say. Thanks.

[quote author=Lord_Reed]. . . it was Constantine who elevated christianity to state religion status not any religious leader. . . . .[/quote]@ Lord_Reed

Actually, the above is not really correct. Constantine did not make Christianity state religion; what he did was to "unban" it, to remove it from being illegal, and to stop people from being persecuted for being Christians. The person that can be said to have made Christianity state religion is Theodosius* in 380 AD ---- several years after Constantine.



* Edit But you are right in that neither Constantine nor Theodosius was a religious leader; they were both emperors taking these steps for a mixture of reasons including political advantage.

Ihedinobi: I agree.

You have mail, bro.

Bros, I bin don see am; earlier on in the day I was going to start replying but realised I was too tired. E go be tomorrow by God's grace.

Cool.

frosbel: . . . . Well , we are intellectually honest when we say that your theory of the Trinity is invalid, we need not hear from you or your cohorts to come to this conclusion.

What I have always said is that to attribute the idea of the Trinity as an "invention" of/at the Nicene council is due to ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.

I stand by that.

Ihedinobi: Like Mr Anony said, no, it does not? I will go further to say that it only attempts to articulate our faith. It's not just "things" that we Christians believe, we believe in a Person. That means that we trust, count on, depend on and lay hold upon a Person. That is our protestation. That whatever we may be wrong about or not understand well, we are utterly satisfied that He is enough for us.

The effort of our intelligence is to comprehend Him, to apprehend and be apprehended by Him. And considering that it is God of Whom we speak, the vastness of Him cannot be fully and finally caught in any creed. The basis or foundation may be, but not the fullness.

You could say that in summary I have said that we do not have articles of faith. We have an object of Faith and His name is Jesus Christ.

Ihedinobi: lol.... You see, the problem here is that you have taken historical information put a spin on it and named it fact and demand that we accept it. Why should we? Can you cite any authority that supports your submission that Christianity was practically defined and established at that council?

Well said in both posts.

The thing is that no matter though how much you explain and provide proof that should satisfy any reasonable person to some of the people here, tomorrow they will still keep shouting Nicea, Nicea, Nicea.

In truth all these things have been dealt with to the knowledge (though maybe not understanding or acceptance) of these people. Whether it is the role of the Nicene Council, suggestions/evidence of the Trinity in the Old Testament etc etc. You will find threads addressing these things in the archives here.

I actually once did a thread specifically on whether the Trinity doctrine was "invented" at the Nicene council and even quoted extensively from a Wikipedia entry outlining how early Christians demonstrated belief in the Trinity hundreds of years before the Nicene council and have pointed it out to some of our friends.

https://www.nairaland.com/497445/trinity-doctrine-invented-council-meeting/2#7181702

But people will believe what they want to believe and say what they want to say -------- well they do say I harp on about intellectual honesty. I think people who are intellectually honest will not harp on that I demand for it in discussions.

MyJoe: This got me laughing out loud.

I think he would be wearing an Alexander Amosu suit and a bowler hat, carrying a crocodile skin walking stick and puffing at a cigar. He’d probably be carrying .45 inside his suit – you can’t be too careful with these evangelical atheists.

Seriously, guy doesn’t have anything for you in particular – I think he comes across that way to anyone he deems “dishonest”, or “idiotic”, which includes anyone he has had a contentious exchange with, especially if “anyone” is an “evangelical atheist” or an “anti-Christian”.

Decent guy? Almost certainly would be in many matters.

Hmmm

I know your problem ------ and you know I know it.

I think this is a very good, indeed excellent thread. In my opinion, from the Christian point of view, this is the kind of thing that the Religion forum is most useful for.

Challenge one another, let each examine his thinking, approach, attitude and practice. Let each learn from others and reexamine his own way of thinking and doing.

However, there are qualifiers for this to work ---- since we do not want to be carried away by every wind of doctrine.

Certain things/conditions must exist to make the most of this including but not limited to:

* honesty - each must be committed to ascertaining the truth of scripture and even truth generally as best as possible;
* humility - each must accept that there is sooo much that we really don't know and perhaps simply cannot know;
* balance - we must recognise that on many issues, each position that seems to be the true or correct position in Scripture can be qualified;
* charity or perhaps what bros Ihedinobi called Grace elsewhere - while we remain committed to what we believe to be true, we all should strive to be accommodating of our brethren and sistren who honestly see things differently
* firmness - on the other hand, charity/grace does not mean we should (always) tolerate falsehood, particularly things capable of shipwrecking people's faith.

Please, understand that these are general ideas and do not by any means represent a claim that I myself always observe these things.

Same point differently expressed in the past

8. Infinite regress (hmmm, as if evangelical atheists have an explanation for what is behind the "singularity" or the "first cause"! )

pak: Kay, Pls can you do me a favour,

Just replace the word reality with God in your statement below and see what you get

Kay 17:
Reality itself can have no origin, because to conceive an origin for reality, we would fall into a pit of absurdity. Therefore reality is self existent. As a result subjects of reality are equally self existent either potentially or in actuality. . . . .


In order other words, it has always being been here

Infact, I'll do it for you.

Kay 17: God Himself can have no origin, because to conceive an origin for God, we would fall into a pit of absurdity. Therefore God is self existent. . . . .


In order other words, God has always being been here

If its not difficult to believe in the self existent nature of reality, then why is it strange to believe in the self existence of a deity.

Very nice; so, bookmarked for reference.

PS I added the things in blue for grammatical and quote accuracy purposes only.

PPS @Kay17 ---- I wonder if you will ever raise "infinite regress" again (you don't have to answer that now)

EDITED

PS when they say by calling them fools we are going to hell etc, don't believe them for a minute; first thing they are misrepresenting what the Bible actually says and secondly they are simply trying to employ a form of emotional blackmail.

One can safely tell them what the Bible calls them --- when necessary. Simples.

Ihedinobi: I'm reading through the thread right now. It's actually quite interesting. Thanks for referring me.

Say, what do you think of all the accusation of insolence, arrogance and abuse leveled against the believer? I see that it was included on that list. I used to be averse to strong language coming from the Christian and thought of it as a sign of upset or anger on his part until recent engagements of mine.

Somehow, I understood and appreciated more that there could be only mild amusement backing them during those engagements. I feel more appreciative of Jesus's apparent bursts of "anger" at the Sanhedrin and His calling Herod a fox.

That's just one example of many idiisyncracies that I had about Lord Jesus that I'm losing on a daily basis. But, what do you think, sir?

A considerable part of this post will reflect my own experience and my perspectives naturally.

Let me start with the accusation of insolence, abuse etc levelled against the believers.

The Christians were not always abusive or insolent towards the atheists in particular in my judgment and experience. Initially, when the Christians could discuss among themselves without much interference most didn't pay all that much attention to the atheists. I certainly didn't because my interest has always been to discuss Christian issues primarily with Christians but also with reasonable non-Christians. In fact till now I still don't even generally get involved with the Moslems, pagans, "esoterics", etc, because I have always preferred to leave them all to do their own things.

Actually, just around the time that the "aggressive" atheists, to be nice, started acting obnoxiously I stopped posting regularly in the Religion section (for some two or more years) and only made occasional visits.

When I started posting regularly here again some 2 odd years ago, I tried as much as possible to keep away from the atheists in particular. By this time, however, a few of them had become reaaaaally obnoxious and would constantly "troll" even purely Christian topics (including praise/prayer threads!), abuse, insult, blaspheme sacrilegiously etc.

They had become extremely arrogant ------ and then it became necessary to engage them and to puncture their pomposity a little.

Now about our own attitude: naturally we are supposed to be far far more tolerant than anyone else and in honesty there is no question that we too got dragged into the mud. However, it is not everything we say that is abuse ----- some is just telling like it is; and this was (still occasionally is) necessary. Some are purely factual descriptions, others are telling and calling them what the Bible calls them when they behave to type; if a person shows he is a fool/mumu precisely for the reason that the Bible gives, then that is what the person is: we may refrain from telling him, but when necessary we do tell him.

I like one poster's expression:

oludyke: . . . The Bible does not discuss with the atheist for not believing in God but reproves him for doing so. Psalm 14:1 “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” . . .

Truly we should strive to avoid strife (nice accidental rhyme, lol) but if telling and not shirking the truth and/or protecting the fold necessitates us to be "full and frank" then so we must act.

frosbel: Why should I , You and Enigma are brothers without knowing it, both catholics with a different twist to the story albeit on the same level with the propagation of falsehoods that cannot stand up to the test of scripture.

Actually, I should reply to this post if only to point out to you, Mr Frosbel, that I have not said a single thing about you on this thread.

Rich4god: @Enigma... You are still dodging away... No explanations plz, all i just want is for you to tell "where/which is the catholic church that the roman catholics need to repent and join?"... cos the last time i checked, the roman catholics have been gathering and are still gathering in the name of Jesus and yet you labeled them as a false church. Am waiting.

Once again you resort to lying! Point to where I have labelled the "roman catholics" a "false church".

truthislight: @Enigma

that rich4God guy question is legitimate.

You mean were they gather they are for christ irrespective of their doctrines?

What to do is to try and understand what Christ said i.e. that where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of them and His teachings, then you will know if/what "doctrine" is needed.

Rich4god: Na wa o... Why are you dodging away from my initial question "where/which is the catholic church"?

You too have resorted to lying and even contradicting yourself in one post as with the other quote of yours below.

Anyway, here again is the answer to your question that that you claimed I am "dodging away from".

Enigma: . . .The catholic Church is the Church that has Christ as its head and not a pope; it is that which is known as the body of Christ.

Of course, we could also go back to Ignatius who originated the expression "catholic church": the catholic church is the Church that is seen wherever Jesus is.

Above all, the catholic Church is the Church of which Jesus said: "where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them."

Rich4god: And to the question you asked above, you are the one who need to explain(answer me) to me cos its you who quoted the notion (when two or three are gathered) and said its the true church.

You can of course choose to argue with Jesus; all I know is Jesus said: "where two or three are gathered in My name. there I am in the midst of them."

Rich4god: lol... I didn't ask for any explanation, i just asked, "where is the catholic church"? Cos, if you want to go by the notion "where 2 or 3 are gathered"... therefore, if 3 of my RCC friends gather together and pray in an RCC way, are we then part of the catholic church.

Obviously, you needed the explanation; now you are in a slightly better state of health.

And as for the bolded, if you answer the following you will have the answer to your own question: if 3 "protestant" friends gather together and pray in a "protestant" way, are they then part of the catholic Church?

^^^^ Look I have been letting you get away with your misrepresentations of various early Christians because it wasn't necessary for proving the case made on this thread.

With Cyprian, he and his fellow African bishops stated clearly that your so called "pope" Stephen was only a colleague of theirs and that the decision of the African bishops to sack some fellow could not be overturned by the Stephen guy.

Can't be bothered to link you with the actual document; it is in my front right now. It is also on the Interweb --- google it.

Ihedinobi: I know thehomer. That guy is the slimiest of snakes. He digresses and regresses infinitely apparently hoping that something will stick. I've never seen such despicable dishonesty.

I think now that their arguments need to be shown for what they are - empty, shallow and utterly idiotic. This is not only for their sake but for the sake of those who read the threads anonymously. I mean to use the occasion of arguing with them now to raise beacons for the many of the children of God that are yet to be gathered in.

Honestly, in specific debates, the arguments of the atheists here have been thoroughly discredited over the years. Even they the atheists know it! For me and I think many who have been here longer, it is not really worth rehashing with them ---- and I have noticed this attitude about quite a few of the Christians who used to engage them.

Actually, I once hijacked a thread which was intended to be a humorous dig at the atheists and it turned to a compendium of some of the standard nonsense that the atheists used to say ---- now the wiser ones don't say a lot of the things anymore.

Here https://www.nairaland.com/298119/30-keys-being-effective-atheist

An interesting aside: recently on a thread I saw one atheist use the expression "Dunning-Kruger effect" (told off by Mr Anony). However, there was a time that the atheists used to throw that expression around here very liberally ----- until we showed them that the very worst exemplifier of the Dunning-Kruger effect is to be an evangelical atheist. The use of the expression here stopped pronto ---- until the recent example. The same is true of "flying spaghetti monster" ----- only the newer mumus are still using it here.

Rich4god: This one realy makes me laff... You mean the RCC should repent and join the catholic church.

Yes, I do mean that the Roman Catholic Church should repent and rejoin the catholic Church.

Rich4god: Where/which is the catholic church?

The catholic Church is the Church that has Christ as its head and not a pope; it is that which is known as the body of Christ.

Of course, we could also go back to Ignatius who originated the expression "catholic church": the catholic church is the Church that is seen wherever Jesus is.

Above all, the catholic Church is the Church of which Jesus said: "where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them."

^^ If you notice, most of the older hand atheists are now simply sniping ---- they have been defeated in the serious debates. One of them whom I am going to name (thehomer -- yep the same one that his teachers told is an ape and he is parotting it all over the forum unthinkingly as is his wont) is a particularly despicably sly and obnoxious fellow and had to be put in his place.

The new ones are mostly ranting or talking senselessly and senselessness without realising it --- so some people just mock them openly, others laugh at them privately, and only few people bother to take them seriously.

Yep as for the other chap, I too had respect for him until I began to recognise very increasingly nothing more than a grandstanding empty vessel without true intellectual depth taking advantage of the saying ---'in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.

^^ Are you now resorting to very plain (and not even subtle anymore) lying?

Where has either Ihedinobi or myself shown any "hatred" to the Roman Catholic Church.

We love the catholic church and it will please us no end if the Roman Catholic Church repents and rejoins the catholic Church.

Just seeing this thread (joys of following Ishilove)

Just a couple of quick comments.

Opera singers from brokoto's list: I like Pavarotti --- his range and the 'ease' with which he used to perform, quite briliiant; very much like Bocelli too --- his voice is just beautiful to listen to; and I really like that duet of his with Bryn Terfel

Composers ---- obviously, the major ones are all incredible but I like to make special mention of just two: Handel for majesty, grandiosity and sometimes simple melodiousness; Bach for incredible and (possibly unsurpassed and unsurpassable) technical brilliance, the guy has too many good "joints" to mention but one I'd like to is his Passacaglia and Fugue . . . . . . . hmmm dreamy eyes already.

^Indeed, I was amused (just couldn't bring myself to get annoyed) that he would "pitch his tent in that camp/spot".

Amused and disappointed but not annoyed for some reason ------ maybe because it is just too daft.

Anyway, these things are not new to me --- they are things that I've observed about a number of people for a long time.

Even on this thread there is the example I pointed out to the fellow with the inferiority complex towards the atheists and Nairaland "intellectuals" who chose to agree with an atheist that his own claimed Anglican Church had no leg to stand on and was too cowardly to explain his own use of the word "catholic" ---- well, helping his fellow "intellectual" to remain in ignorance.

Anyway, why should that surprise me; no be the same person say the infamous Leopold Letter is a well known "historical document" and its authenticity can be compared to that of the gospels and the Bible. So much for claims to being an "intellectual"! Simply pathetic.

chukwudi44: Wow!!! Cognitive dissonance !! I did not realise his case was that bad.A man trying so desperately to deceive himself.

See your life outside!

See how low you too have sunk.

chukwudi44: Pleaseooo iron sharpners kindly point out all the untruths you find in my posts as you see them.

As I did with your 'run-run' supporter in the first post on this very page, I leave you to your conscience.

Zikkyy: Why this fight over who compiled the bible? ehn?

My brother, you wey sabi how I dey truly fight WoF people proper proper in the past would have noticed more than anyone say I dey try very very hard not to fight with my Roman Catholic friends here.

If anything na the non-Catholics wey dey do amebo I don't particularly care about

Zikkyy: Brother Enigma, which time you do sex change?

Nna Bros*, you too see am?

(*I don't know why I just like that expression 'Nna bros' like that!)

When one's position is honest, well considered intellectually and well informed ------ it is not difficult to rest in that peace which passes all understanding

My brother

This is how it is supposed to be among brothers ---- is that not what is meant by iron sharpens iron?

Just the same way I have learned things from your posts too.

Ihedinobi: I don't know whether or not it's intentional, but Chukwudi presents quite a number of untruths. It's kinda worrying.

This is correct. I have overlooked a number of them just so as not to derail the thread.

^^^ Like you have answered the simple question what you understand by and meant in your use of "catholic church" at all or honestly?

^^^ And no meaningful argument from their supporters either and, in the case of some, nothing more than woeful display of ignorance and very poor comprehension.