Do Atheists "Worship" Anything?

Rex has not grasped the point that his relationship with what he calls "God" is entirely transactional. Under pressure he resorts to quoting from pages of "the contract" to show what a good deal he is getting.
(There's a bit of pyramid selling involved as well of course with special perks for those who recruit)

Ah, i laughed aloud, Fresco . . .

Amway for the born again . . .


(As the bumper sticker says: No thanks, i was born properly the first time)

The blood of Christ is not a mere transaction...

No, for you , its more a Ponzi.

Thus the Christian Church (in contrast to the teachings of the Nazarene himself) is a big Ponzi SCHEME?

When Rex is peddlin' it, it sure is.

Rex wrote



Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Salvifici Doloris:


......transactional to the core !

Christ suffered to save the world from suffering not plunge them back into suffering. Chris died so we could live he did not die to encourage more suffering.

His church is in his resurrected glorified body not is crucified dead body...

We represent his victory not his shame.

We do not suffer to become holy.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace [the law of liberty] are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God [spirit]: 9 Not of works [suffering], lest any man should boast.

Comment: Christ suffered to make the holy spirit available to us so we could bear fruit and live in unity.

Christ paid for his walk in the law of liberty with his life.

So we could walk in the law of liberty and eternal life.

No Rex...according to the Pope ( ) its all about "redemption from original sin" by "regular faith payments" (i.e "worship") with respect to the story about God's "own" sacrificial lamb Jesus.

i.e The contract says.
1. You need "redeming" to qualify for "eternal life" and for "the good of the world".
2. "Redemption" is through "faith" thereby empathising with Jesus' suffering, and your own suffering might help with this empathy.

Presumably "original sin" refers to "eating from the tree of knowledge" prior to which there was no mortality. In other words thinkers must relinquish their intellect and have "faith" in the sacrifice story in order to requalify for (the emperors new clothes of) "eternal life"!

I will first say that I love the pope but I do not in this case agree with his interpretation of the word of God. We are not redeemed by our own works but redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ and the one and only true God...

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord [Jesus walked in God's law of liberty not his own] Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Comment: Here we are to confess the Lord from sin not confess ourselves from sin...

We are to believe in our hearts that "God" (God's works) raised him from the dead and we are saved.

Qualifying for these "new clothes".

For it is the perfect spirit that qualifies us not our own self made holiness.

Colossians 2:13
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

Comment:
What works can a "dead" man do to please God? We are not saved because we walk in liberty we are saved because Christ Jesus walked in the law of liberty. By forgiving Christ from sin we are forgiven of our own. By laying our cares upon the father we acknowledge that that we are saved by the law of liberty and in this we accept this same liberty for others.

We are saved from our sin because of the holiness of the spirit and not the holiness of our own flesh. Because of this eternal gift of God we then can know the love of God in the gulf of the human soul.

Romans 8:8
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Comment: Only those of the spirit [law of liberty] can please God.

1Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man [only body and soul] receiveth not the things of the Spirit [law of liberty] of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Comment: Again it is the church trying to impose law upon the body of faith. When the law is the law of liberty when our works are of grace and mercy not of martyrdom and law. We are urged to look within a person for holiness and not without.

For in time it is the law of liberty that tenderizes the heart not the law of sin and death. It is the works of Christ that provide our own salvation not our own...

Our own works provide for our "rewards" in heaven but the rewards of this life are provided by the spirit in Christ Jesus.

The rewards of service are walking in love and the benefits of this love in the flesh.

For love cannot live without the spirit living within. The ONLY way to this spirit is the walk of the law of liberty demonstrated in Jesus Christ the only born son of God.

For had Jesus not walked in liberty he would have grown old and died with a family and not have done the will of God.

But he walked in the same law of liberty and did God's will.

This kept him on the path of the law of liberty rather than the path of law. It is because of his walk that we are able to walk in this love and it is because of his being raised from the dead that we are raised from the dead.

Grace or salvation by works only puff up the flesh and make one boastful of their own works when it is through the works of God (who raised Christ from the dead) that we obtain holiness..

The works of the flesh only make a person boastful and unrepentant that it is God who saves and salvation is not of ourselves.

James 1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer [of the law of liberty], he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

Comment: Without comprehending the works of God we only comprehend our own. Those who only hear the law of liberty and do not do it yet they do the works of the law instead to attain holiness are looking to the flesh of their own works and are not looking to the spirit of the law of liberty.

So this mindset of salvation by grace is tied into the works that we are to love others as we were loved for the spirit and not the outward flesh experience of self.

It is only the law of liberty that can place the mindset in the right place to please God.

For it is the spirit that pleases God and ONLY the walk of the love of the spirit can please God in deed.

Any salvation that requires works to achieve is not salvation of the true God. For salvation is a "gift".. A gift we do not work for or it woudl be the wages of salvation.

For the only works salvation requires were accomplished two thousand years ago... We need but only claim our salvation now.

Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

We need not work for this salvation but to confess the "Lord" Jesus Christ from sin (not our own sin) and believe "God" raided him from the dead.

Our confession of this man Jesus from sin demonstrates the law of liberty alive and in operation within us.

Salvation is supposed to always reflect the works of Christ and God within [Spirit] and when salvation becomes an act of our own works then the suffering of Christ and his walk in liberty to save us becomes of no effect.

Always seek the ways to give God the glory and in return God will glorify you.

The Roman catholic church is simply wrong about this doctrine and a few others. They have been wrong [bless their hearts] about this for many centuries.

It is this outward salvation which is why the church IS persecuted so much... Because they are spreading condemnation and persecution by removing salvation by grace and replacing it with salvation by works.

So the Catholic contract is defective !

Instead we have the more nebulous


transaction,
transaction.
transaction!

Faith is the key...

By faith...

FAITH is a very big word.

It really requires it's own thread.

There are many nuances of the word faith used in the Bible.

One example.

Faith is a manifestation of the spirit but it is also a fruit of the spirit.

But faith is also what unlocks the door to the spirit being received...

Faith is a mystical thing of the spirit but it is also something that a human has before they receive the spirit.

So Biblically there are different kinds of faith.

In essence there is believing and faith.

Believing is what is required to receive faith.

Believing is what Jesus built his church upon, but faith is what his church grows into, they begin to operate a different kind of believing and they then bear the fruit of this believing.

And it grows into his own faith. (The faith of God the faith of Jesus Christ are the same faith. All faith is of God, thus there is only one faith.)

Which was the faith of his father in him. (The glory always goes back to God)

Thus we have the capacity of God to believe.

(Yea, I just recently learned the difference between yolk and yoke...

I knew the difference between what they meant but lately I inadvertently didn't recognize the difference in the spelling... how embarrassing.)

I can see your gripe about the word "transaction".

It seems like an alteration of the self, it is... also an acceleration, a realization a quantization of the self.

I have myself used the word, propitiation.

This transaction must occur in order for us to speak with the word of God.

The self must become the image of God in order to bear God's "characteristics".

Only in God's true nature and manner can the walk of love be comprehended and fulfilled.

God in Christ in YOU!

Rex,

Transactions require at least two parties. In your case these are your "self" which consists of a committee of argumentative facets of your ego ,and "God" which at least some of the committee think is running things in return for homage/glory/worship.

The atheist obviously rejects the "concerned creator" angle and may even reject the "coherent self" in recognition of the committee. There is therefore no basis for transactions because one or both parties are fictitious or changeable.

You do not seem to see that all your arguments are in essence directed at potentially dissenting members of your own committee, rather than others like myself, on whom your efforts have zero impact.

Next time you find yourself having "an internal dispute" this point may ring a bell !

The problem with those waiting for christ is often that they think those bells mean something else entirely... :wink:

The two parties are creation and creator and the transaction is eternity.

My wife?

Your wife is part of the creation also...

To worship yourself is only to lower the potential of becoming a fully activated person.

We worship the creator who created the image of self.

Bells?