Thanks!

Maybe this is true in your sense of what "Church" means, however the Gospels teach something else.

Actually the Church is about explaining...explaining what? ......all the teachings of Christ ...in other words explaining Christianity....explaining to whom? ....  all the nations of the world until the end of the world. Read St.Matt. 28:16.-20..it records Christ Himself giving His mission to the Church.."Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ....teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.."

No, Lula the gospels don't preach something else.  The great commission (Matt 28) is to go out into the world making disciples.   The church is to serve two purposes in their gathering together.  The first is to worship God as a corporate body coming together on a regular basis.  The second is to edify and encourage the body so they can go out and make disciples as they were commissioned to. 

What has happened over the centuries is many have gone above and beyond that and instead of teaching the gospel they are teaching man-made traditions and religions dogma and I think that's where B.T. is coming from.    In your case, when I first met you, you had no real working knowledge of the bible.  That's typical of most in your denomination.  They have no knowledge so how is that for explaning the word of God?  Their knowledge instead is more in line with their traditions and dogma than it is with the scriptures. 

If you don't believe me, bring a bible to church and ask anyone if they can open up to the book of Numbers or even Peter. 

stick to the subject matter Lula.  THis is NOT about baptism. 

I did. The subject matter turned to BT saying

You responded by telling BT that Church isn't about explaining anything and when I challenge that error by citing Scripture...St.Matt.28: 19-20 to be exact ....you retort that it's not about Baptism.

You write:

But how does St. Matt.28:19-20 record that the church makes disciples of all nations? By teaching (explaining) Christ and by Baptizing in His name. 

And besides that if you still think the Church is not about explaining anything, then what did Christ mean when He said, "He who hears you hears me,...."?

I plan to respond to this later I hope you don't delete this too.

I don't want you to respond to it.  BT made a comment  to me which I responded to.  You jumped in and made a comment trying to bring this back to baptism  so I addressed you too.  Enough.   We've been there, done that too many times. 

This is not about Baptism or evangelism.  It's about Stephen Hawking, Science and how it all relates.  If you care to expound on that, fine, but please don't turn this into something it wasn't intended to be. 

That's it.  Don't turn this into another theological debate Lula.  I'm not doing that anymore with you. 

It gets us nowhere. 

KFC,

C'mon? Be reasonable. Don't you realize that when you write an article in which you quote Scripture, and make assertions as to what it means, that it's you who's asking for a theological debate?

Don't you realize the theological debate started on the first page when Doombrnger challenged your theological pov? BoobzTwo did as well, but when it comes to me...nope...nothing doing.

................................

KFC posts:

KFC posts:

Okay, I won't at least not in the way I was originally planning.

However, it's necessary to remind you this is a discussion...and you can't expect to dish it out and give back of the hand swipes at the Church and Catholicism and not expect or allow me to respond.

.....................

I know I read it...in your response to BT, you took a swipe at the CC, just as you did above so...that brings me in.

Agree.

And I was never trying to bring this discussion to Baptism. You just assumed that I was and deleted my comment. 

BT wrote she didn't need you or any organization to explain the Bible and your comeback was that the Church isn't about explaining anything. My rebuttal to that was to quote St.Matt. 28 which records the Church's mission is to Baptize as well as to teach.

I quoted Scripture which contains the word Baptize but that doesn't mean I want to bring the discussion to Baptism. I don't.

But it had to do with the subject matter.  You have a habit of coming on my site and turning it into a Catholic/Protestant debate.   That's ok at times if we're in that general area but not every single time we get close to discussing scripture in general. 

If you want to talk black holes, Stephen Hawking or the general end of the age type of scriptures fine but please don't get into the diff between the Catholics and the Protestants. 

If you wish, go to this blog I've been visiting where they discuss alot of RCC subjects.  I'm gathering they are mostly Catholics who left the church and they discuss the reasons why.  I'm sure you can talk all you want about the RCC there.  They seem very receptive to the subject. 

http://kittykit.wordpress.com/  

I agree and so did my comments have to do with the subject matter. Here's why.

There are 6 pages of comments and not all of them directly addressed black holes, Hawking or the general end of the age scriptures.  It wasn't long before the discussion developed into one around the subject matter of religion(s). BT's comments of #58 had nothing to do with Hawking per se, but plenty to do with the discussion as it had progressed.

Your own comments # 64, 65 and 66 swerved the discussion head on into your own particular Protestant theological viewpoint.

I disagree with some of those and gave the reasons why citing SCRIPTURE TO REBUT YOUR ASSERTIONS.

Check it out...YOU, not me, are the one who first brought up your theological viewpoint (Protestantism in both your article and comments).

Well, when you quote Scripture and then assert it means or supports something (in this case Hawking's ideas) and I disagree, then sure I'm going to tell you and give reasons why. That's just the way that it is.

Lula,  you're not getting it.  It's not about Protestant or Catholic.  Period. 

I give a biblical viewpoint.  That's it.  It's not a Protestant viewpoint.  It's a biblical one. 

The ONLY time I even use the word Protestant is with you.  We don't go around calling ourselves Protestants.  Only the Catholics call us that and it's derogatory because they like to think we're less than they are. 

I will do a short "justification by faith alone" soon and then you can go after me with both guns if you wish then.  Here or any other subject matter that might incite a little biblical scripture is not giving you a license to debate me on the scriptures to the degree that you are doing. 

That's not he point here.   You have a blog site yourself.  Feel free to speak about the Great Commission all you want there.  That's not the point of this thread.   When you do such things you are hijacking it.   No more. 

A weird and most interesting table.

But I do feel that I absolutely have to comment on it.
Christianity was obviously founded once a group of Jews had identified their Messiah. It is therefor an extension of an existing religion and has, because of the Messiah requirement a definite start date.
Islam claims that it is the religion of Noah, Abraham and Moses and that Muhammed is just the last in a series of prophets. Hence Islam is older than the 1400 years here implied. (And it is true that some Arab tribes before Muhammed worshipped the god of the Jews and worshipped Him as the only god. They were Muslims already.)

I myself wouldn't list atheism as a religion. It's a belief system but it has no rituals. Buddhism could be considered an atheistic religion, at least some Buddhist sects are such.

Judaism is a tribal religion and properly belongs in that same category. No, more properly Judaism is the version of the religion that developed on Judaea whereas Samaria practiced a different version of the Mosaic religion. But Moses was only a prophet sent by a god who was already worshipped by Moses' ancestors and Moses' ancestors in Iraq (where Abraham came from) had probably worshipped that god for quite some time, while other Semitic tribes worshipped other Semitic gods. So there is no definite date for the start of "Judaism" but I would argue that Moses made a strong start and he lived, traditionally 1300 BCE which is also around the time when Egyptian sources start telling of a tribe named "Habiru" and a bit later of a land named "Yisrael".

The Bahai faith is an extension of Muhammed's Islam just like Muhammed's Islam was an extension of existing monotheism in Arabia.

Pre-Jesus Zoroastrianism, like pre-Jesus Judaism, is understood by Muslims to be Islam as well.

Leauki it was posted entirely to point out to DB that other religions would fill the void once he (hypothetically I assume) eradicated Christianity. The numbers seemed to jibe with other sources, but as far as the descriptive content, I'd probably be the last one to ask if any of it is correct.

Depends on how you want to define it.  I would argue Judaism started when Abraham was called out of UR and was the father of the Nation of Israel.  Or you could start with his son Isaac and his 12 sons who later were the basis for the 12 tribes of Israel. 

There are two major covenants mentioned here, the Abrahamic and the Mosaic.  One was unconditional and the other conditional.  With Moses his law covenant was designed to establish a moral system for a primative people.  They were a motley crew,  an uneducated group and to establish this group into a nation they needed a lawy system which we now understand is the Mosaic Covenant or law covenant that we see in the Pentateuch.  So while we have the organized nation here, they were still a nation before Moses, just not all put together morally, civilly or ceremonially like they were after Moses. 

What god are you speaking of here Leauki when you said "that god?"  Are you saying that in Iraq they were worshipping the same God Moses would later worship? 

The latter would be the start of the nation of Israel. Isaac and his sons certainly had the same religion as Abraham.

Noah was.

You have not seen the American ones!  They have more rituals than a zebra has stripes!