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Jesus Who?

widows son

Premium Member
I also love how you deem anything that doesn't fit in your box of reality, crackpottery, or nonsense. Have you anything to counter this claim? No offense, but by you just saying its crackpot isn't really credible. I'm sure your church maintains traditions that didn't make it to Europe, to be honest you've never really said what part of Christianity you follow, nor is it my business so I really can't comment.
 

BEDickey

Premium Member
Bryan, are you a Coptic? In that case I would agree with you, Coptic Christians are a unique subset of the Faith, and maintain many links to the Egyptian faith. I would ask also, if you don't use the KJV, what version do you use?
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
In my opinion some are. It doesn't mean that I think the followers are. Again Bryan not my problem if you have an issue with what I believe in. Also before the reformation in England priests were the only ones who could read the bible, and was always in Latin. Thank god for the printing press.

ENGLAND IS IRRELEVANT TO MY CHURCH, so stop pretending that all Christians are limited by your ignorance of history. There was never any "Reformation" for my Church. Latin was always a minor little tongue, not mandated by any stretch of the imagination. Stop imputing the problems of Rome to all of Christianity. You are quite persistent in your bigotry.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Bryan, are you a Coptic? In that case I would agree with you, Coptic Christians are a unique subset of the Faith, and maintain many links to the Egyptian faith. I would ask also, if you don't use the KJV, what version do you use?

I am an adherent to the Orthodox Church, often known as the "Eastern Orthodox Church" in the West. Contrary to the lies spread by Jesuits and some Evangelical proselytizers, we are not merely "Catholics without the Pope". We have substantial doctrinal, praxis, and historical differences from Rome and her children. The Copts, by the way, are not some isolated group off on its own but are part of the "Oriental Orthodox" communion, which is closer to the Eastern Orthodox than to other Christian groups and includes the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church, the native churches of India (as opposed to the European-sponsored groups), and several others. If you want to go around claiming that the Copts are a relic of Egyptian paganism, I suggest you tell this to the face a of few Copts and see if they let you keep your nose. After all, if you are going to make such claims about the Coptic Church, that means you DO personally know a few Copts, right? As a matter of fact, I do know personally know some Copts.

I get rather prickly about claims made regarding "Christianity" because they almost always are based on non-scholarship of the 18th-19th centuries, in which a purely Latinized "history" was accepted without question--and what wasn't from this was simply made up from whole cloth. It served the purposes of Rome and the Reformationists to deny any uniqueness to both the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, so the "scholars" of the west went along with this.

As for versions of Scripture, my Church has never had a sanctioned English text. This is because there were very, very few Orthodox who only spoke English until the late 20th century. Thus, multiple translations are acceptable, but none are officially sanctioned. In recent years, a sanctioned translation has been started: http://www.orthodoxanswers.org/eob/ It will not be mandated, but it is meant to be the "go-to" translation for English speaking Orthodox Christians. However, since it is a scholars' edition, it is a bit pricey, and it's being published piecemeal at the moment.
 

LRG

Premium Member
" Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed". The belief in my Lord Jesus Christ is not a religion, it is faith. It matters not how old he was or the color of his hair nor what star was where. To me it matters not what jewish persobs or any other person believes in, but my belief and that of my family. For the Father Son and Holy Spirit is One and Jesus Christ is the Son of Our Almighty Father)
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
What is the specific difference between a "religion" and a "faith"? It sounds like claiming that "music" somehow manages to exist without any songs at all. The moment that one has any concrete expression of "faith" it is religion. Is Freemasonry, with its ritual, practices, special spaces, etc. not really a fraternity? Instead, those who really "understand" would have "Fraternity" but would reject "Freemasonry"?

Just a Freemasonry, the Elks, the Lions, etc., all are expressions of "fraternity", and "fraternity" simply does not and cannot exist outside of some specific expression, so "faith" cannot exist outside of some specific expression, and that expression is named "religion".
 

jwhoff

Premium Member
I can't agree with that statement. Religion is man-made. One's faith is, or should be, something else entirely.
 

widows son

Premium Member
Agreed. What if you put your faith in humanity? That we will get over our problems and push forward? I don't thing religion can claim faith for its own.
 

crono782

Premium Member
so "faith" cannot exist outside of some specific expression
George Michael would like a word with you. :laugh:

Hah,I'm sure BM is referring to faith in the religious context rather than the broader definition of "complete trust in somebody or something". I have faith that my car will start in the mornings.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
I can't agree with that statement. Religion is man-made. One's faith is, or should be, something else entirely.

Faith is as "man-made" as is religion. What one might choose to put faith in could be Divine, but that doesn't make the faith you have any less "man-made".

Of course, there is a self-lie told by some "Christians" in the present day that their own personal flavor of religion isn't a religion but is "a faith". Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
 

widows son

Premium Member
But that is not the context in which faith is being described. Do you have faith that when your car dies, it will come back to save you?
 

SeeKer.mm

Premium Member
But that is not the context in which faith is being described. Do you have faith that when your car dies, it will come back to save you?

Sorry Brother I guess my sense of humor didn't entirely communicate through that last post. But now that we are there on the serious tip: A. My car doesn't have a life or a soul so it can't technically die :) and B. My definition of faith doesn't mean someone will come back to save me , to me faith is when you count on something to happen without actually knowing whether "it" will happen. Whatever "it" is, is entirely up to the faith holder.

Damn I am glad we don't talk about this kind of stuff at lodge, the Brothers bicker enough as it is about whether or night we are servicing coffee at refreshment or not!
 
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