Paul vs. Jesus

[Granite]

One way to look at it is that he swapped one form of fanaticism for another.

 

[Chileice]

One way to look at it is that he swapped one form of fanaticism for another.

I know you are trying hard to stay away from anything that gives Christianity any credit but you have admit granite, it is pretty dog gone rare in this world that one does that and that one does it so dramatically. Even if you just look at the situation as a non-religious person, what would have caused a well-respected, well-educated guy to do that? Seems like the explanation would have to be a bit more dramatic than "he just switched fanaticisms". People in the normal course of life don't do that. How many moslem terrorists have you seen signing up to go on missions withYWAM? How many Hindu zealots suddenly drop everything, move to Pakistan and join the taliban? It just isn't within our normal experience to see that or even hear about it.

 

[Caledvwlch]

I know you are trying hard to stay away from anything that gives Christianity any credit but you have admit granite, it is pretty dog gone rare in this world that one does that and that one does it so dramatically. Even if you just look at the situation as a non-religious person, what would have caused a well-respected, well-educated guy to do that? Seems like the explanation would have to be a bit more dramatic than "he just switched fanaticisms". People in the normal course of life don't do that. How many moslem terrorists have you seen signing up to go on missions withYWAM? How many Hindu zealots suddenly drop everything, move to Pakistan and join the taliban? It just isn't within our normal experience to see that or even hear about it.

It's not inconceivable that the guilt of Saul's persecutions suddenly caught up with him. A conversion experience is usually tied to guilt somehow.

 

[Agape4Robin]

It's not inconceivable that the guilt of Saul's persecutions suddenly caught up with him. A conversion experience is usually tied to guilt somehow.

Jesus "caught up" with him.
Otherwise, he had nothing to feel guilty about. He was doing the work of God in his persecutions of the christians. According to jewish law, they were commiting blasphemy against God and stoning was the punishment.
As for the guilt factor concerning conversion, it is our remorse over our sin that causes true conversion. Guilt without remorse and then repentance, is not a true conversion.

 

[Gnostic]

Quote granite, "The interest he had was certainly not in the earthly, human Jesus, but a resurrected cosmic Christ. The Jesus of the epistles is not the man of the gospels."

Indeed Paul didn't care too much for Jesus of Nazareth. His Cosmic Christ was not a man but rather the divine force that is "in you." Jesus taught exactly the same thing when he said the Father is in him. And now we come to the contradictions...

Luke 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

but Paul didn't believe it...

1 Corinthians 15:50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,

15:1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received ...

15:35 But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised?

this is how, and he makes it perfectly clear by contradicting certain myths of physical resurrections...

44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

45 The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a lifegiving spirit.

46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

I'd say when Paul mentions "other gospels" that he's referring to ideas which later crept into the synoptic gospels, namely the myth of Jesus' physical resurrection [into the flesh]. Paul didn't see legs, but a light.

*

 

[Granite]

I know you are trying hard to stay away from anything that gives Christianity any credit but you have admit granite, it is pretty dog gone rare in this world that one does that and that one does it so dramatically. Even if you just look at the situation as a non-religious person, what would have caused a well-respected, well-educated guy to do that? Seems like the explanation would have to be a bit more dramatic than "he just switched fanaticisms". People in the normal course of life don't do that. How many moslem terrorists have you seen signing up to go on missions withYWAM? How many Hindu zealots suddenly drop everything, move to Pakistan and join the taliban? It just isn't within our normal experience to see that or even hear about it.

It isn't normal but it's certainly not unheard of. A devout Catholic interested in the priesthood wound up running the SS. A former seminary student was responsible for the Soviet gulag. Democratic idealists met their end at the guillotine they used on their opponents. Paradigm shifts happen, and when they happen to the right (or wrong) person, they change history.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Jesus "caught up" with him.
Otherwise, he had nothing to feel guilty about. He was doing the work of God in his persecutions of the christians. According to jewish law, they were commiting blasphemy against God and stoning was the punishment.
As for the guilt factor concerning conversion, it is our remorse over our sin that causes true conversion. Guilt without remorse and then repentance, is not a true conversion.

Are you telling me that non-christians are incapable of feeling guilt and turning from their evil ways?

 

[Berean Todd]

Are you telling me that non-christians are incapable of feeling guilt and turning from their evil ways?

It depends on your meaning of "turning from their evil ways". If you mean turning from "really" evil ways, that even society would admit is wrong, to less evil ways, which God would call sinful, but society today oks ... then yes, man can do it. If you mean true repentence and turning, then no, man can not turn from it apart from the drawing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

[Caledvwlch]

It depends on your meaning of "turning from their evil ways". If you mean turning from "really" evil ways, that even society would admit is wrong, to less evil ways, which God would call sinful, but society today oks ... then yes, man can do it. If you mean true repentence and turning, then no, man can not turn from it apart from the drawing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Fair enough. Differences of opinion I can live with.

 

[Lighthouse]

Quote granite, "The interest he had was certainly not in the earthly, human Jesus, but a resurrected cosmic Christ. The Jesus of the epistles is not the man of the gospels."

Indeed Paul didn't care too much for Jesus of Nazareth. His Cosmic Christ was not a man but rather the divine force that is "in you." Jesus taught exactly the same thing when he said the Father is in him. And now we come to the contradictions...

Luke 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

but Paul didn't believe it...

1 Corinthians 15:50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,

15:1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received ...

15:35 But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised?

this is how, and he makes it perfectly clear by contradicting certain myths of physical resurrections...

44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

45 The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a lifegiving spirit.

46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

I'd say when Paul mentions "other gospels" that he's referring to ideas which later crept into the synoptic gospels, namely the myth of Jesus' physical resurrection [into the flesh]. Paul didn't see legs, but a light.

*

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

-Romans 10:9​

Guess who wrote that.

 

[Granite]

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

-Romans 10:9​

Guess who wrote that.

This has absolutely nothing to do with my point or Gnostic's. Try again.

 

[Agape4Robin]

Are you telling me that non-christians are incapable of feeling guilt and turning from their evil ways?

Don't change the subject. We are talking about religious conversion and Paul.
But in answer to your question, Berean Todd said it best.

 

[Granite]

So much for asking a simple question and getting a straight answer.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Don't change the subject. We are talking about religious conversion and Paul.
But in answer to your question, Berean Todd said it best.

Ok, but I wasn't trying to change the subject. I was suggesting that the experience on the road to Damascus was not revelation, but hallucination. A conversion could still result. A conversion experience is usually the result of pychological trauma brought on by guilt of some sort.

 

[Agape4Robin]

Ok, but I wasn't trying to change the subject. I was suggesting that the experience on the road to Damascus was not revelation, but hallucination. A conversion could still result. A conversion experience is usually the result of pychological trauma brought on by guilt of some sort.

Maybe in your case......

 

[Caledvwlch]

Maybe in your case......

No most conversion experiences are exactly that. They call it Paranoid Personality Disorder.

 

[Agape4Robin]

No most conversion experiences are exactly that. They call it Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Paul was not hallucinating and he did not feel guilty.....until after he met Jesus.

 

[Caledvwlch]

Paul was not hallucinating and he did not feel guilty.....until after he met Jesus.

Well sure, that's the dogmatic interpretation of what happened, but just because that's what Luke wrote in the book of Acts doesn't necessarily make it so.

 

[Lighthouse]

It's also what Paul said.

 

[Agape4Robin]

Well sure, that's the dogmatic interpretation of what happened, but just because that's what Luke wrote in the book of Acts doesn't necessarily make it so.

Says who?