Rev Wayne
Simplicity + Sincerity = Serenity
I think the main problem with this statement is the idea of "exclusively." The sources quoted all have the truth of the statement that Jesus said was central. So all sources quoted teach the central truth of the Christian revelation. A system that thus teaches the central truth of Christianity cannot be called a "false system." It has to be called a system which contains at least some truth, and that among the truths it contains is the central truth of Christianity. Otherwise, by declaring the entire system "false," you have called the central truth of Christianity false also.Unless you want to go on record as saying that the Bible is not exclusively the divine truth and ultimate authority of God's revelation to mankind.
It's the same fallacy I've tried to point out many times before, that is made with so many accusations of Freemasonry: taking the part and presenting it as the whole. And Id have to say, that by the very fact that each of these quotes is an expression of a CENTRAL TRUTH of the Christian faith, as Jesus declared it to be, it is a reasonable assumption that there ARE other comparable truths to be found.
But this raises another point you have totally ignored. So far in this exercise, we have only observed ONE truth found in the Bible as compared with other religions. How many MORE, do you suppose, might be contained within other systems, that may also be true, also be found in the Christian revelation, also were written centuries earlier, and thus also would be non-derivative, and also be thereby attributable only to divine revelation? The fact is, unless someone were to explore this in any comprehensive manner, the extent of comparisons has not even begun to be explored, and therefore any conclusions that you might make without further examination, are simply your own unexamined opinions.
By the same token, their gods remain false because their concepts of God are incomplete.
Neither may you make this assessment without further examining the truth statements and truth claims of each of the sources quoted, to find out the extent to which each may express truths found in Christian teaching. At what point do you give up the totality of your assessment? What if 50% of one of these should turn out to be comparable to Christian teaching? What if it turned out to be 60%?
And what if teachings found therein can be shown to be true statements even though no parallel expression of it may be found in the Bible? It certainly could not be thrown out as false. I think your stance, which appears to be, if its not entirely, 100% the same as the Bible, then it has to be discarded as false, is not a workable standard at all, because it automatically must dismiss some truths on the basis that single truths cannot be dealt with separately but have to be subsumed into the whole. The very fact of the above quotes illustrates the fallacy of such a position, for to accept it, one must automatically throw out the Golden Rule as false, since it was also revealed in those systems. And if you have declared it to be false, then you have declared part of the Bible to be false as well, since your standard admits of no exceptions.
Hence the god of Freemasonry and the false gods of non-Christian faith systems are FALSE.
Basically, you just said false gods are false. Gee, ya think?
And there is no "god of Freemasonry." Who God is to the individual Mason is up to him. And anyway, even if the claim were so, who would the God of Freemasonry be? The opening prayer, found in all lodges anywhere you look in Masonry, indicates He is the one who said wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there in the midst of them, which would be Jesus, since He is the one who said that. There's more problems with that for the NON-Christian than for the Christian in lodge.
Additionally, I believe that mankind has been able to embrace the Ethic of Reciprocity, not because of divine revelation found in FALSE religions, as you are trying to argue, but based on True Divine Revelation in Holy Scripture-- namely, Romans 2:14-15:
Well, since none of them had READ Romans 2:14-15, since the sources I cited were all written centuries before Romans was even written, they did NOT get that revelation from True Divine Revelation in Holy Scripture.
But you sure got one thing right, they definitely got it from True Divine Revelation, or else they plucked it out of the air, because it came independently of, and prior to, the scripture revelation you cite.
So the divine revelation you are attempting to place on the so-called "sacred writings" of false religions, is really NOT inspired writing, but what is place by God in the hearts of the men to begin with. Even atheists have some form of moral code of conduct that cooresponds to the Ethic of Reciprocity.
The concept of inspired writing is totally foreign to anything I said. Where on earth did you get that? All I said was, what they wrote down was TRUTH. And I said that ALL TRUTH IS GODS TRUTH. And I said that since what they wrote down was most definitely TRUEseeing how its THE central teaching of Christianity in JESUS description of it, AND since it came PRIOR to the writing of this truth in the NT, AND since it also came INDEPENDENTLY of the biblical revelationthen there is no way they could have gotten this any other way than by DIVINE REVELATION.
Divine revelation simply means God revealed it to them. The fact that they wrote it down in their sacred books simply indicates their own understanding of the source, by placing it in a compilation of things they also considered to have come by revelation.
I anticipated you would try to spin this into something I did NOT say, and so I qualified the remarks with:
What this does NOT mean:
It does not mean that all things contained in those sacred writings are thereby to be considered divine truth. (To do that all the other statements claimed as divine truth within each religious tradition, would have to be examined and proven true.)
Therefore, your claim trying to make it sound like I claimed anything about inspired writing is revealed for the spin job it is, for I CLEARLY said nothing of the sort, and I CLEARLY indicated that I was not stating what you just claimed I said.
Your quoting Romans 2 only serves to further support my point, since all I was claiming was the reception of this truth, as expressed in the above quotes, by divine revelation. Or as you choose to word it, what is placed by God in the hearts of the men.
What claims have I made that you are referring to? The only claims I've made regarding False Gods and False Religions is that they exist as any faith system apart from biblical Christianity
Calling them false is a claim in itself, which is exactly what I was referring to. Anything containing truth is not false, it is truth and falsehood mixed. What you have FAILED to show is, just how much is true and how much is false. You may throw out the baby with the bathwater all you wish, it does not validate the practice. Nor does simply claiming it to be a valid approach validate it either.
He will deposit just enough truth in the hearts and minds of men in order to lead them to the ultimate truth found in Christ Jesus the Lord. But it will be up to them to accept this free gift of salvation once the gospel has been presented to them.
So how much is just enough? Youve made no attempt to show this at all. You have cited Romans 2 and the Gentiles ability to recognize the right from the wrong, but you fail to see that this is the surest corroboration of how they managed to receive the revelation of a central Christian truth: they recognized that this was the divine will, and they gave the surest indication of it by putting it in the one place that would most surely indicate that estimation of it, the book of writings they considered divine. Your entire post tries to duck and dodge its way around this, but this fact still remains, and you have further supported this fact by citing Romans 2.
Now I will further support the thesis also by citing from Acts 17, where Paul declares that all men are made of one blood, which is a true statement: all descend from Adam, all also descend from Noah. God also determined the times set for them, and the exact places where they should live. Then Paul makes the conclusive declaration of exactly why God did this: God did this so that men would seek for Him and perhaps reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. In many of those times and places into which God divided people, there has been no Christian revelation. But at all times and in all places, there has been SOME form of revelation: we ALL have the natural revelation in creation, and now in examining the quotes cited in my previous post, we have also seen that in other writings than the Bible, there has been at least SOME divine revelation, even though most of us as Christians would not agree that their revelation is on the same plane as the Christian revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
And yes, as you said, God gives ALL of us enough revelation to lead us to Jesus Christ. But so far Im having trouble getting you to accept the implications of your own statement well enough to see that the Golden Rule, discerned independently and prior to the Christian revelation by those within other religious systems, of necessity must be PART of that enough revelation to lead us to Jesus Christ. After all, for God to give us revelation, even the enough revelation to lead us to Jesus Christ, that revelation must also of necessity be TRUE. So far all youve done is go head over heels trying your best to show that even the truths found in other religious writings has to be labeled false.
There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man. - Max Müller
I sure would like to see that in context. I would like also to see a specific reference where you got this from. My copy of the Louisiana Masonic Monitor doesnt seem to have it anywhere. Could you help me out a little by citing the page number where you found this?
Louisiana, like all other U.S. Lodges, has the Holy Bible on the altar for its VSL. Ritual content, is replete with Christian references, and is devoid of any other religion-specific content.
The Louisiana Masonic Monitor also has this statement in the dedication of a Masonic Hall:
In the name of the great Jehovah, to whom be all glory and honor, I do solemnly dedicate this Hall of Freemasonry.
It also says in the MM degree:
Be ye careful to perform your allotted task while it is yet day, for ye know not when the time is; ye know not when the Master comethat even, at midnight, or in the morning. Continue to listen to the voice of nature, typified by the sprig of Acacia, that ever-green and ever-living FAITH in the merits of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, which bears witness that even in this perishable frame resides a vital and immortal principle which inspires a holy confidence that the Lord of Life will enable us to trample the king of terrors beneath our feet, and strengthen us with confidence and composure to look forward to a blessed immortality. (Bold emphasis added, caps were in original)
There are three distinct references to Christ in this one paragraph from the lecture. The first is a direct reference to the Second Advent; the second is from Revelation 5:5; the third is a common reference to Jesus, especially in Christian hymns, and refers to John 11 and the raising of Lazarus.
Any Christian Mason worth his salt will instantly recognize who this is. Its the NON-Christian Masons who should have the problem with the God of Masonry, as you term it, because if there were any God to whom Masonry MUST be attributed, then by all that is contained in its ritual, its prayers, and its principles, the Christian God is the only one to whom it possibly COULD apply. Expect another post shortly in which I shall prove this even further.
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