Do you claim any religious faith? / How are you on sharing?

[oftheherd1]

Sadly I have been to services, four military funerals in three years and a few before that over the years. Not to go to the funerals of people I knew well who died in Afghan wouldn't have been right somehow, military funerals here are more of a symbol perhaps than a religious service, they were all Church of England which is very good at not being religious, Englishmen finding it somehow not the thing to be 'nosily' religious. The services were very quiet and dignified, people attended regardless of of their faith or whether they had one. Religious leaders here including the Chief Rabbi agree that attending military funerals like this is the right thing to do regardless of where they are held. Desparately sad though all of them, so many young lives gone. It's that I think that pervades the services along with pride in the fallen, perhaps it's an English thing, that there's still the 'stiff upper lip', there's little 'religion' in the services tbh. The quiet dignity of the families in their grief puts the politicians to shame.

Glad you not only have no problem with attending the funerals, but feel duty bound to do so. Good attendance at a funeral will almost always help the greiving famliy. For others it does indeed show pride in the fallen. Nobody wants to die, but knowing you (and more importantly your family) will be shown that respect, will give comfort to those who know they must go in harm's way.

 

[elder999]

.never mind.

 

[Carol]

I'm doomed!!! :wah: :wah:

 

[elder999]

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gesthemani,near Louisville, Kentucky. He was a Christian mystic, and author of 72 books-including his best-selling biography, The Seven Story Mountain, listed as one of the 100 most important works of nonfiction in the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century by the National Review. He was also a pioneering proponent of interfaith dialogue, who communicated regularly with the Dalai Lama,D.T. Suzuki, and Thich Nhat Than. He explored Zen Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism and Sufism. Toward the end of 1960 he began a correspondence with Abdul Aziz, a Muslim (Sufi) civil servant in Karachi, Pakistan. Until Merton’s death in 1968, the two men exchanged books and letters in which they discussed their theological differences, introduced each other to their respective traditions of spirituality, asked each other questions about their daily practices of prayer and meditation, and described to each other how they ordered their days. One of the most detailed, pesronal accounts of Merton’s daily life in his hermitage at the Abbey of Gesthemani is recorded in a letter to Aziz.Merton and Aziz were deeply curious about and appreciative of each other’s religious traditions. Merton wrote to Aziz about being stirred to the depths of his heart by the spirit of adoration and holy awe in Islam. Aziz read avidly all the books on Christian mysticism that Merton sent to him.

Neither tried to convince the other to move from appreciation to conversion. Aziz once sent Merton a translation of the Koran, and suggested he add the chanting of the Koran to his daily prayers. Merton declined, explaining that his work was to chant the holy books of his own tradition, and, besides, he didn’t want to chant the Koran incorrectly. "But," he wrote, "I read the Koran with deep attention and reverence."

The deep attention and reverence that Merton and Aziz brought to each other’s books, traditions and lives undergirded their friendship, and the frank and unembarrassed way they explored their similarities and differences enlivened it: the two friends prayed for one another regularly and often asked for each other’s prayers. Aziz prayed for Merton on the Night of Power, when the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad is celebrated. Merton prayed for Aziz on Pentecost. As both were early risers, they often prayed for each other at dawn.

"It is important," Merton wrote,"to try to understand the beliefs of other religions, but much more important is the shattering of the experience of divine light….It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam." This conviction was the foundation for Merton’s many interfaith friendships. Even when the two friends reached theological impasses, they remained connected to one another through their common desire to search for and find the living God. "We live in dreadful times," Merton wrote to Aziz in 1961, and we must be brothers in prayer and worship no matter what may be the doctrinal differences that separate our minds."


We live in dreadful times.

 

[granfire]

I'm doomed!!! :wah: :wah:

View attachment 16270

OH NOEZ!!!11!!!1!!eleven!!!

 

[elder999]

Matthew 27:46

King James Version (KJV)

[SUP]46[/SUP]And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

So, it's Easter.

On Good Friday, when Christians commemorate Jesus's crucifixion, priests, and deacons, and pastors and ministers all around the world read this verse as part of the Gospel reading for the day. The phrase, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me is an echo of the 22nd psalm, so a lot of people are really satisfied with those parallels,and there are a lot of convoluted explanations for what Jesus is saying here-that He couldn't go to Hell with God's grace upon him, and so God removed it being just one of them, but what if-and I'm just saying, if, that phrase, transliterated into Greek from Aramaic (and, judging from what's left in most fragments, an odd combination of Hebrew, Chaldean-Aramaic and Syriac-Aramaic, but mostly Aramaic) was translated and transliterated incorrectly? The Kaboris Codex-the oldest extant entire collection of Gospels written in Aramaic, circa 1100, reads thusly:

Matthew 27: 46. And about the ninth hour, Y’shua cried out with a loud voice and said: My El! My El! Lemana shabakthani: Why have you spared me?

Which could be Jesus kind of saying, Hey, Daddy, I'm up here on this cross, can we end this now? Since he expired shortly afterward, this is possible. As an aside, lest anyone think I'm being flip by typing "Daddy," in most of the NT, when Jesus prays, he uses the familiar equivalent of abba to address God, so he really is (kind of) calling Him "Daddy."

But it could be something else altogether-a syntax issue, and Jesus is actually saying something along the lines of, My God, my God, For this I was forsworn-for this I was spared, and what is commonly interpreted as a whimper of agony becomes almost a cry of triumph.

Just a thought.

Happy Easter, to those of you who celebrate it-He is risen!

And Chag Sameach Pesach!, to you, Canuck and Tez-and anyone else who celebrated Passover.

and everyone else? ......have a nice day! :lol:

 

[Carol]

Speaking of abba meaning father...

16And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
17Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?

16habebat autem tunc vinctum insignem qui dicebatur Barabbas
17congregatis ergo illis dixit Pilatus quem vultis dimittam vobis Barabban an Iesum qui dicitur Christus


The notable prisoner's first name was Jesus, bar- means "son of", Abbas means "Father"
Pilate would then be saying, whom will ye that I release unto you? Jesus son of the Father? Or Jesus which is called Christ?

18For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
19When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.

18sciebat enim quod per invidiam tradidissent eum
19sedente autem illo pro tribunali misit ad illum uxor eius dicens nihil tibi et iusto illi multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum

Him. Singular. Just man. Singular. Pilate gives the crowd a choice between Jesus Son of the Father, or Jesus who is called Christ, and knew with envy the crowd had turned him over. And that his wife pleaded with him to have nothing to do with that just man yet two prisoners are on deck.

20princeps autem sacerdotum et seniores persuaserunt populis ut peterent Barabban Iesum vero perderent
20But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.

bar-Abban -- son of the Master.

So Jesus son of the Father, Jesus the Christ, Jesus son of the Master ...

 

[Carol]

If there was no Barabbas as a separate person, there would have been no instance where the angry mob gathered for the vote. No instances where the story is repeated ad infinitum every time the high holidays occur. And no clinging to the notion that the Jews killed Jesus. The verse sited at Matthew 27:18 shows the Latin verb tradar -- to give up, to hand over. Jesus was given up, handed over to the Jews calling for his punishment.

Yet the oft-touted John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam

The verb used is dar (to give) not tradar (to give up). God gave his son. God did not give up his son....he got his son back 3 days later. The Nicene creed says for our sake he was crucified. And in accordance with the scriptures he rose again 3 days later. It was all planned.

And, the practice of an angry mob choosing which prisoner goes to his fate does not appear to be consistent of Jewish practices of the time.

This is not a story relegated to a footnote. This is something repeated every high holiday.

 

[khuang85]

I identify myself as a Christian but also like to incorporate aspects of other true religions into my faith. I believe Scientology, the Mormans, and Jehovah's Witness religions are cults and do not believe in what they say. I'd share if appropriate but will NEVER try and shove it down another person's throat. I think it is not our place to do such a thing.

 

[Ken Morgan]

I identify myself as a Christian but also like to incorporate aspects of other true religions into my faith. I believe Scientology, the Mormans, and Jehovah's Witness religions are cults and do not believe in what they say. I'd share if appropriate but will NEVER try and shove it down another person's throat. I think it is not our place to do such a thing.

Todays’ main stream religions are just cults from the past that have become very successful.

 

[Blade96]

I'm agnostic.