Tom

How do you know? I don't think whores are born whores, so I would think becoming a whore would be a gradual thing.

Sorry to hear that geisha, but I understand. I don't know if I'll be here much, but, if I am, I'll miss you & your contributions which I've appreciated.

There you go, thinking again:).

It was never either about Humpty's breaking nor his falling, but about man's utter inability to reconstruct life by all his might and intelligence. Humpty played with deconstructing man's codes to show them as completely arbitrary, idiotic, and without meaning - the real question being who is master.

Tying together ideas from 2 threads is becoming a bit unwieldy - probably a lot of the fault is mine. If so, I'm sorry. Speaking of the definitions of zero: Excuse me, cman. DrWW: you asked if anyone had referenced a dictionary concerning zero. That long list of synonyms ending in zilch and zip (I think) and preceded by a definition or 2 was mostly from a dictionary. I added "the absence of value," supposedly a valid original definition according to Jaime Escalante in the story Stand and Deliver: "Did you know that neither the Greeks nor the Romans were capable of using the concept of zero? It was your ancestors, the Mayans, who first contemplated the zero. The absence of value. True story." cman, concerning the math, I found this quote that, I think, should be considered on this thread: "The mathematical zero and the philosophical notion of nothingness are related but are not the same." And again, "Zero behaves differently from other numbers. The idea of zero is synonymous with absence, so I choose to view the set of all positive integers, and zero as opposite ideas rather than considering zero to be a distinct number like 1, 2 or 3. In set theory, the idea of a null (or empty) set, is a similar idea. I emphacise that it is the number zero, not the idea, that I choose to eliminate. Presence is the opposite idea of zero and in the realm of numbers, zero reflects the absence of numbers. In otherwords, something either exists, or it doesn't. If it exists, then it has a quality that we call number associated with it, and if it doesn't exist we call this absence, zero. I will leave this discussion to the philosophers to ponder in more depth." BTW, from what I gather, the term zero is 1st recorded to have appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 BC. It was supposedly invented independently by the Mayans later around 4 AD. Maybe baby Jesus looked around and said, "Hey, Papa, this is a whole lot of nothing." Just kidding - OK, a little humor. OK, OK, a very little bit of humor. On a scale of 1-10, zero humor? Ouch! OK, back to the reason I brought up the above quotes. I just figure that, if people are going to be faulting the God of the bible (and I know you're not doing this cman, but it has been a generally present thrust in these 2 threads), they ought not to be doing it based on extra biblical constructs. Personally, I think a far more worthy and worthwhile endeavor than tearing the Word apart would be to put it together - God's thoughts being higher than ours and all. Remember, when Humpty Dumpty took his great fall, all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put HIM back together again. SirG, Humpty's lesson's notwithstanding, I've enjoyed your banter AND your valuable insight. I've not been offended - I trust the feeling is mutual. Likewise, DrWW. Nevertheless, I'm sure the significance of Humpty's words and demise has neither been lost nor relegated to the ranks of obscurity by either of you. Happy New Year to all. May we, as little children, expand into what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. Let Christ's power work in you, and, thereby and therein, glorify God. Tom I don't know, but I'm going to stop thinking now. Love ya, Tom

Thank you!

"God" and "Spirit" is very often described as being very "zeroish" Hmm, so you say. Perhaps if words mean whatever you want them to mean. without form? Many things are without form, but are still something more than nothing. invisible? Kind of silly to describe nothing as invisible, no? Invisible connotes something (more than zero therefore) that can't be seen. likened to wind? Wind is not a zero. I live in Florida - don't even go there. and air? Ditto and breath? Dittojava script:add_smilie("","smid_42") "the whole ghost?" As opposed to 1/2 the ghost? Or 2 ghosts? Oh, I get it - whole sounds like hole, and the whole of a donut is round, and what is round looks like a zero. OK, I believe this is serious. the deep? Anyone got a boot? always? Zero is never. already? Prior to a time is not a zero point. everywhere? I lived in a time when everything was everything. THAT I understand, but everything is nothing? Everywhere is nowhere? Everywhen is nowhen? I guess you're guessing a lot that ---well I guess I must have missed it actually. Surely you recognize this "rant" as the rambling of your mind. I could go on, but why? Let me try to sum up. If I could borrow the words of DrWW, "Ephesians 3:18 KJV 'May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;' Comment: So we place our foundation upon an invisible God, upon a point the has neither depth nor height, nor form... Sounds like zero to me." Well, actually, those are the words of DrWW talking about the words of Paul, umm, ultimately, the Word of God? That IS the POINT (if anyone is looking for a point here) of this discussion, no? So, Paul just referred to a multidimensional reality, one more dimension than most of us admit to having understanding of (& we're leaving out time here), and Paul says we can comprehend it - "WE," not just you and I, but all saints. We're not talking genius here. Genius is not required to get on this bandwagon of understanding. Actually, reminds me of a verse - Isaiah 35:8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Dang, I can be a fool and not err on this path. But, DrWW reads all this everything more than any everything anyone has ever thought about & sees zero. WOW, now, THAT'S amazing (don't mean to pick on DrWW while talking to SirG, but it appears we have 2 threads where we might as well have 1). DrWW, you have discounted such an everything to zero because, you say, we "place our foundation upon an invisible God, upon a point the has neither depth nor height, nor form... Sounds like zero to me." Upon what foundation do you say God is a "point that has neither depth nor height, nor form?" Hm, hm, hm, don't see that here. Don't want to drag this silliness on, but this one, causal? I guess again mentioned as evidence that God is zero. I just thought that was too funny not to mention. No offense intended. Formlessness gives us a lot of space to defrag in all the big and little ways we do? Defrag on. He certainly has given us a lot of space to do so, but I'm not that sure that lot of space is meant to be occupied my "all the big and little ways we defrag." "no, not valueless for lacking value....but valueless for being unmeasureable and abundantly free? Sounds good, but that's not zero. "to think that the God is somewhere else or somehow separate from us or smaller than or missing from ALL THIS HERE NOW is a form heresy and a blasphemy against "the one whole Spirit" I think the concern was more that we can be be separated from God, rather than that God was separated from us - but maybe that's just me. "because we are like fish who dont know we are wet and suffer on the wrong side of the eye of a needle" What a nice figure, SirG "i mean...what happens when final seal is opened in the throneroom of God?" Ooh, you had to ask that! Well, there's been a lot of talk about perspective lately, so let me leave it at this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm supposing that when you ask about the "final seal," you're playing very loosely with the Word - umm, as your manner is. So, therefore, I'll refrain from too many specifics. You probably meant "the bottom line" when you said "the final seal." Forgive me if I'm wrong. Depending upon one's perspective, the opening of the final seal will be a time of woe for those who have held on to their pride and screwed irreverently with the Holy Spirit, or a time of rejoicing for those ballsy enough to have held fast to their hope because they know now that their Hope is VERY soon coming at that point. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t-- till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean-- neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master-- that’s all.” Humpty Dumpty mind you. Tom

Zero IS: The absence of value A quantity of no importance 0 aught cipher cypher goose egg nada naught nil nix nothing null zilch zip

Seems pretty plain to me. I mean it takes time & effort to develop a comprehensive understanding, but only wizards behind curtains are hiding anything, trying to sell us certifications.

Their "God/deity/demon" works through "black magic, devil worship" to control the systems of the world, so that not only "black magic, devil worship" "takes or steals life rather than contributing to life in general," but engagement in the systems of the world tends to suck life also "rather than contributing to life in general." "Black magic, devil worship" and the systems of this world that they control both appeal to selfishness and greed - man's desires to, like the controller of his systems, consume the things of life upon the alter of his lust. More and more, as man engages in these systems, this competition to acquire and consume more than life requires tends to steal real life rather than contribute to life overall. But this tendency toward a more and more perverted definition of what real life is becomes man's definition of life. Man has to "sacrifice" that to achieve true life. He has to empty himself of his false attachments to be filled with the true. Divorcing oneself of the deceptive entrapments of the systems of this world designed by the Adversary is not much different than realizing "black magic, devil worship" tricks one into engagement in a system that that steals life and choosing not to engage.

God has no form because God is spirit; so then, the self image God casts is spirit. Therefore, the self image so cast also has no form. How then can it be cast (put into a distinctive form) one might ask. The "stuff," spirit, "liquid," "water of life" that is God is poured forth. It's essence retains its essentially formless essence, but the container that it is poured into (Christ) serves to convey that essence in conventional forms familiar to us spatial/temporal types, so that we can align our antitypset up with the essential design form. I don't want to start an argument here DrWW, but I think assigning zero to God sets up unnecessarily the dichotomies you spoke of earlier. This happens because the foundations of mathematical systems - like everything else - determine the structural integrity of the direction of that which is built thereon. Galileo had 2 theories of gravity. What served as the then "academy" of sciences chose one of the theories, and the, IMO, house of cards built thereon over the years confronts us with the dichotomies of wave theory of light vs particle theory, tiny vs large theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory all generating outward to increasingly mathematically complex and increasingly unprovable theories of form. The only absolute that holds true is that they all contradict in part; therefore non is true. I suggest that had the academy chosen the Galileo's other theory, all apparent dichotomies might never have appeared. All mathematical forms would be essentially simple. Nothing built thereon would be approximate. But having developed economic systems and supporting philosophies based on an erroneous foundation into which those who rule are absolutely invested, there is no possibility of breaking this erroneous paradigm in any equation derived therein. I humbly suggest that God is not zero. The Lord our God is one. All then follows without dichotomy. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t-- till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean-- neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master-- that’s all.” Hello again, Sirguessalot.

Hi mudflaps, There is another discussion going on about the tithe - right before I post this that other thread is above yours - that addresses all your mentioned concerns. Rather nicely IMO. Check it out. Regards, Tom

Ah, I see. thanks for explaining further. I have a sign on the wall in my bedroom that says, "First your pants, THEN your shoes." Apparently, I've clean forgotten about the socks.

DrWW, ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and you shall find, but don't ask already precluding any possible answer because, after all, alchemy blah, blah, blah. There is no place in a mind set like that for an answer from a greater source than your thinking. Why ask if you've already discounted those you ask? Just ask.

If I could explore this "confess and believe" somewhat, I think it might fit in here and apply to several threads of thought. TWI twisted these concepts (confessing and believing) into some doctrine on being positive; thereby, losing the power of the Word of faith, that is to say, losing the presence and power of the Lord Jesus. It reminds me of Jesus saying that the people of Israel (BTW, I don't have a bible handy either; please don't pick me up on not using biblical chapter and verse references. Jesus figured "It is written" sufficient often enough. Feel free to look it up.) heard the Word every Sabbath day, but not believing it, condemned the chosen one. TWI talked/talks about the Word, but not believing it, lost the Lord in large measure practically. On the contrary, the Word of faith has an immediacy about it. When Jesus first taught, he said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." So, they kicked him out of his home town. Hey, no one fell asleep at his words. Likewise, the Word of faith today. It doesn't say that doing all these things, we will, therefore, live. It says that the Word is as close as your mouth and the heart inside your chest, that if thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead - you know the rest. Confession is made unto salvation; man believes unto righteousness. But wait a minute, what confession is made unto salvation? That Jesus is Lord. For many in TWI, the only time that they confessed the Lordship of Jesus on their tongues was when they got saved; afterward, it became a tag line on all their/our prayers to the Father - somewhere in between a meaningless repetition and a magic incantation many times. That confession was supposed to mean that we had changed Lords, that the Lord Jesus Christ was now the Lord in every situation. What about THIS situation? Deliverance WHEN you confess Jesus's Lordship in the situation. The 1st century believers were always confessing the Lordship of Jesus as they spoke in his name. They didn't walk around with some mental equivalent of a paper power of attorney agreement believing they represented the absent Christ; they SPOKE in his name. They didn't say, "Hey, I speak in tongues; I KNOW I'm saved." They said, "He [Jesus] has shed forth this which you now see and hear." They didn't just speak the Word; they preached the Word of faith - Jesus is Lord, God raised him up, he is not dead, he is alive and Lord - CONFESS HIM now and receive wholeness wherever you need it. The religious leaders didn't tell the apostles to stop speaking the Word - THEY were speaking the Word; they told them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this has what to do with Bride or Body? Only this: some have decried that people speaking in favor of the Body being only for our day and time don't mention Jesus - it is all about us and the fellow members in the Body, unlike the Bride analogy that is so much about Jesus Christ. Sadly, I have to agree that is, for the most part, a true report. But, as Twinky has so admirably, and successfully, kept this thread on topic, let me quickly, but not without compassion, dispense with any possible sidetrack about the fault of people in this regard, and return to a consideration of the truth of the matter only. Let God be the judge, but that is the context in which they/we were taught. But that is not the record. Take another look at the Body. Ephesians 4, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head, Christ, from whom all the Body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according the the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in love. Wow, where does the edifying come from? The effectual working in the measure of every part [you and me], where does that come from? The compacting supplied by every joint in the Body and the joining together of every part fitly, WHERE does that come from? CHRIST!!! Yes, Christ got lost. But this is not the fault of the Body of Christ. The Body IS an exquisite direct revelation of this () parenthesis of the mystery in action. Jesus Christ is the all in all in it. For what it is worth, I figure the Bride is usually spoken of as an "as" in that which is addressed directly to the Body. And accurately so. Actually, everything ever expressed in the Word may be taken as if it were addressed directly by God to us - that leaves no loss of consideration of the multifarious blessings of God - except, and only insofar as it may directly contradict what is expressly addressed to us by God. If that leaves anyone feeling left out in any regard, it shouldn't. Indeed, we are left out in no regard. Best regards, Tom

Sunesis, Oy, vey - okay about reading into posts things that aren't there - & I'm NOT trying to be rude, just trying to communicate as simply as possible to make a point: What Sun posted: What Tom said: Not that you're decrying that people don't believe in the trinity, but decrying that non-trinitarians don't believe in THE DIVINITY of Jesus. THAT'S just not always true. If non-trinitarians are relagated to the ranks of those who believe that Jesus is just another bro, just another enlightened guy, a liar, a lunatic - then WHAT intelligent, never-mind gracious or REAL discussion can happen. Jesus is God, or, as Lewis ever so intellectually affirms, I'm a fool. THAT set up precludes any discussion of who Jesus Christ is above a jack-foot unless one believes in the trinity. No, I don't want to participate any discussion on those terms. Call it "smacking of censorship" if you want to geisha, but I call it - those who determine the terms decide the outcome - THAT'S truly the way censorship works. I don't agree to those terms - never will - call it what you will. All censorship considerations aside, threads DO get hijacked. All I wanted to do is discuss who Jesus Christ is without those absurd dichotomies (God or lunatic, enlightened guy, bro) being foisted upon us. anotherDan, Ay, yi, yi - okay, since you asked - I WOULD like to pursue it. Today, I started back to work - things are crazy busy, but I'll honestly try - I do have a seriously vested interest in discussing who my Lord & Saviour is. Will do - might take till the weekend or next Mon. or Tues. Thanks to anyone who has offered encouragement or interest positive or negative. Sunesis, I hope, after thought, this has cleared up the majority of perceived pejorative input between you & I. Geisha, your second to the last previous post recognized some heart sensitivity that you perceived in my previous post & offered hope on your part that we might communicate on that basis. Your last post post was more simply about communicating hurt as a result of some of the things that I said. I understand both. Please, if you will, I'd like to carry the first to fruition and resolve the second, but we can't do either right now. I recognize your spiritual beauty, & appreciate your heart's appreciation of my heart's desire to deal with things on that heart level. Okay, for now? Later & love? Tom

No time, but I'm not ignoring anyone. Just a brief post which might get cut off quickly. Hi Abi, I miss you. geisha: Even so, giving me the choice that either I believe Jesus is God or a liar and a lunatic doens't leave any room for discussion. Or are you just talking about CS Lewis's logic, but you don't subscribe to it? The former leaves room for discussion. The latter doesn't - unless I'm advocating that Jesus is a liar or a lunatic. Surely that much seem obvious - & is exactly why I wouldn't want to discuss who Jesus is with Trinitarians - unless I want the discussion to be all about whether Jesus is God or not - which is exactly what I wouldn't want. Any open thread then that I might start would, of course, devolve into a Trinity discussion. If I wanted that, I'd have entered into the Trinity thread. Gotta go

Tzaia, When I say remarkably, Tz, I'm talking remarkably to me. And no doubt there were, and may be now hopefully, others who walked/are walking more remarkably. I'm not talking about things I heard or read, but things I witness - my spirit bearing witness with his spirit & God's Spirit. You know? Or maybe you don't know, but anyway...Tz, Maybe Sampson somewhat. TZ, I think he did realize the wrongness of his life at times, but, like you, Tz, that's just what I think.

Easton's Bible Dictionary says the word cult "afterwards came to be used in a bad sense, of those holding pernicious error, divergent forms of belief, "but when he say's "afterwards," he is referring to 2 Pet. 2:1 & Gal. 5:20 where the word for sect or cult is the Greek hairesis, translated heresy.

No doubt. I do believe there were other times where the spirit (& Spirit) of God confirmed he was rather remarkably walking by the spirit. It's a conundrum when I read accounts of others who say because he did sush & such, he was a false prophet who coudn't have walked with God in any regard.

Jeff, Mark, BTW, visited your website & blog - very interesting - you've done some nice homework - wish I had more time to talk in detail. excathedra - hello darling - big hug. Okay, this brings to mind something. Sharing this makes me vulnerable. Please don't attack. The scene is PFAL 77. My then wife & I are both still very much recovering from an accident in '76 in which we should have died (I mean, really. The hospital called my wife's parents, & told them to come pick up her body. They told my parents I had 1 to 3% chance of living, & that, if I didn't die, I'd live the rest of my life as a vegetable. Someone did die. Some here know the story. Many here probably engaged in a week of intercessory prayer - thank you - that's why I'm alive). The turning point came one night when a sweet believer whom we had recently witnessed to showed up at the prayer vigil site & told the guy she was replacing that she was a brand new believer, had just been lead into speaking in tongues, & didn't know what to do. Before the fellow left, he told her to hold a picture of me & my wife in perfect health in her mind while she spoke in tongues for us. If anything other than perfect health broke into the picture, she should realize God was telling her we needed help & ask God to fix it. Oh, this is getting longer than I intended. Many here have heard it before. Long story short. She stayed there all night by herself praying – I stayed awake all night talking to God about whether or not I had a life worth living waiting should I want it. No one told me I’d be a vegetable & look like Frankenstein if I lived, but I knew I was about as totally screwed as anybody can get & still be alive (for a brief period). To die seemed the easy alternative. Living was scary – especially like a mentally very deficient Frankenstein looking beast. But the thing about it was I was a believer. I didn’t want to die on a punk foot confession that God can’t deliver, & the next thing I know, look Jesus in the face on the tail end of my punk foot confession. But I wasn’t willing to go on, not knowing how everything got so screwed up, only to have it happen again somewhere down the line. So, I told God I’d go back & live if He’d heal me so I didn’t live my life as a freak, & if He’d teach me what happened so that I’d learn how to keep it from happening again. That was the deal between me & God. Meanwhile, the girl at the prayer vigil sees my head falling apart, & tells God to put it back together. That morning, my leadership shows at the prayer vigil before coming to the hospital to see me. The girl tells them that God showed her that I was going to die, but she asked God to heal me & he did & would. She tells them that God had a long talk with me & told them that I would tell them what God’s love had communicated to me when they came to visit. As soon as they came into my room, I told them about God’s love just like she said. I don’t remember the specifics – actually, it was pretty much the 1st time I was solidly out of a coma for 3 days. They asked me what I knew about deceiving spirits (I had just finished agreeing that God would teach me what had made things so screwed up), told me that my internal bleeding had stopped over the night, & that the doctors HAD to operate on my immediately or I would die. I wouldn’t do it – I wanted Dr. Weingardner (SP?) to operate on me. My mother told me I was going to die & asked me if there was anyway I would let them operate on me. I said the only way I would do that without Dr. Weingardner doing it was if Dr. Wierwille said I should & gave mom the phone # from HQ (having lived there, I knew the #). Mom came back a few minutes later with a note from VP saying that Dr. W wasn’t trained to do the kind of operation I needed, that the best people in the world to do the kind of operation I needed were at the hospital waiting to do it, having been called in from Duke University to do it, that I should believe that the grace of God was holding me more firmly than the bed I was on, let them operate, & I would wake up alive if I did. Much longer story short like I said – read the forthcoming book. Anyway, my wife & I, after taking care of bills, spent the rest – I mean all the rest, we were broke after that – of our insurance money to go to PFAL 77. We figured that we needed something spiritual to go on – what with the talk of deceiving spirits & all. End of PFAL 77, VP goes into this talk of about how his life is broken bread for the Body of Christ, like that of Jesus Christ, how that is the life that Jesus Christ has for those in the church – that our lives are to be that broken bread for God’s own, like Jesus’ life was, how that’s what it is all about, &, if we don’t see that (at the end of all this PFAL 77), our eyes have got to be blinded by deceiving devil spirits. End of class – immediately followed by others bringing out a gift for the teacher – this huge 3D replica of the last supper – Jesus Christ talking about his body being bread to be broken for us, etc. Deep, deep truth – despite the fact that you can talk to devils in any insane asylum in the country any day of the week who will tell you that they are Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. Did he live it? IMHO, sometimes – when he wasn’t being a scum bag.

Bramble: Dot Matrix tried that recently. It worked rather well for a while, but then it reverted to a Trinitarian/non Trinitarian dichotomy. Major drag.geisha: Tom: I may be projecting here, so correct me if I'm wrong geisha - I definitely do not want to put words in your mouth - but I'm going to translate what you just said means to me. I'm recently arrived, so maybe there are other instances that shock that I'm not aware of. But here goes an attempt to go beyond the generalities without any intention to hurt. geisha - what geisha says, what Tom hears - brackets are my insertions into geisha's words - hey, communication sucks under the best of circumstances - let's do our best to make this happen without malice: .If those assumptions on my part are wrong, then I'm not even in the neighborhood of the ball park, never mind participating meaningfully in the game. If I’m that off, forget the bus, the taxi, hitchhiking. I’ll sit at the side of the road, & wait for God to provide a destination, a ride, a place, & a job. Or I’ll refuse to participate anymore in the game. Geisha, I never questioned your motives. It never entered into my mind to do so. Well, yeah, it does seem like you’re out to prove the Trinity regardless of the collateral damage to people sometimes, but I’m sure you have your own perspective about that, & you’re not out to hurt people. So, what, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – or so the saying goes. I don’t believe that either, but that doesn’t mean I question your motives. Bramble says, “Perhaps the initial poster should just say who they want to post--Trinitarian Christian discussion ONLY.” I know Bramble, it was only an example, but why isn’t the example, non Trinitarian discussion only? I would really like to get involved in a discussion of who Jesus Christ is – with Christians. So, in the wake of the recent discussions, I show up at the “Trinity” thread, just to see what people are talking about Jesus Christ – maybe there’s a glimmer of light in the window for me to chance a knock on the door. Sunesis (whom I respect a lot in particular for sunesis about who Jesus Christ is – is decrying the “fact” that non–Trinitarians don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. Dang, I believe in the divinity of Jesus, & I’m not a Trinitarian. As a matter of fact, Sunesis, I thought we discussed this 2 years ago. Someone points out that non-Trinitarians don’t necessarily deny the divinity of Jesus. I’m encouraged. Geisha, you aver that everyone who ever lived has to either acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and God, or he is a liar and a lunatic. Geisha: “It has happened to me more times than not. I hold a differing view--so I must mean "A" although I really said "B". It is a difficult mode of communication.” Umm, you said it – all HAVE to confess either Jesus is God or a liar and a lunatic. It is in the record. I’ll produce it if you want. I’d rather not. All I really want to do is discuss who he is. But those are the only choices I’m given in this Trinity thread – by geisha. So, I back out. After all, the thread is NOT “Who is Jesus,” but “The Trinity.” So, where am I? Start a thread on “Who is Jesus,” and exclude Trinitarians? I’d rather hear what Sunesis has to say - & others – without people telling me that, if I don’t believe Jesus is God, then I just think that he is a “bro,” hey, mofo, what up, a liar, a lunatic. Talk about A or B! Life’s bigger & Jesus is bigger than your opinion of life. So, I didn’t post. You know, I’d rather engage in discussion of who Jesus is, rather than discuss the Trinity as if it is the end all & be all. Am I allowed here to do that, or is that discriminatory? I’m so pressured into being politically correct in my job. I won’t do it here.

See, there, I just left without saying what I wanted to say. Was it because I was afraid? I didn't want to hurt someone? I just couldn't be bothered? It's too late? A little of all? Ah, sweet sleep people. Manana. Tom

I believe I understand where you are coming from. Right before I was reading your 1st post on this thread, Sun - I was feeling the same way. However, I haven't been here for quite a while until just lately, Sunesis, and I have to say that, from what I've seen, people seem to be more civil and mature in their conversations that they were when last I shared coffee here.

Bramble, other than saying things like God is love, Father, Creator, the Great Spirit, He so loved that he gave His only begotten Son, I don't think we can define God. Giving attributes IS one way of defining, but we can't define God in the sense of assigning him to a class or species. We can't delineate His form for He has no form. Even He can't define Himdself to us in those terms. He inhabits eternity. Doesn't help much by way of a clear definition. I suppose God figures it is sufficient that we can know the love of Christ that passes knowledge and be filled with the fulness of God. Any attempt by man's theology to define God is IMO the height of hubris. He is God after all. Can't put Him in a box and market him; although, churches have been saying they are doing that as long as there have been churches I suppose. Pshaw!