If you do Not believe that Blessed Mary is the Mother of God, than who do you believe Jesus Christ is?

[ClamDigger]

Thank you for your understanding and balanced approach to this thread. It appears others a quick to send the fiery darts without reading slowly what is being said.

I hope to consider your thoughts this evening.

SM

Maybe you should have made it more clear in your post what you were saying. The KJV is not a Catholic translation of the Bible as it is lacking in seven books. Therefore, I am not familiar with it’s style.

 

[ClamDigger]

I have spent 15 years reseaching and praying over the scriptures only to discover how simple the nature of Christ is to those who approach the scriptures with eyes that are willing to see, and ears that are willing to hear.

That’s great and all, but how can you understand what you are reading if you have no one to guide you?
Acts 8.30-31
“And he said: Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest? Who said: And how can I, unless some man shew me?”

 

[Nicea325]

So I assume from your repsonce you dont believe Jesus has a God i.e Creator?

SM

Nope!

In John 8:58, when quizzed about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am”—invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God—“I Am” (Ex. 3:14). His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59).

Also significant are passages that apply the title “the First and the Last” to Jesus. This is one of the Old Testament titles of Yahweh: “Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of armies: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god’” (Is. 44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12).

This title is directly applied to Jesus three times in the book of Revelation: “When I saw him [Christ], I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the First and the Last’” (Rev. 1:17). “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life’” (Rev. 2:8). “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:12–13).

This last quote is especially significant since it applies to Jesus the parallel title “the Alpha and the Omega,” which Revelation earlier applied to the Lord God: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).

 

[Alethos]

You are so outrageous. Since when did the word “God of Christ” become synonymous with “Creator of Christ”? Don’t you think Peter would have been a bit more clear and called him the “ktiste” (creator) of Christ, rather than the “Theou” (God) of Christ if that’s what he inteded us to glean from this passage? The Greeks had gods that they recognized that were not regarded as their creators (Aphrodite, Artemis, Dionysus, etc…), yet they still worshiped them. Similarly, this statement does not mean that God the Father created Christ, merely that he is worshiped by Christ.

Does this mean God worships Himself?

 

[ClamDigger]

Does this mean God worships Himself?

God the Son worships God the Father.

The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.
The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Holy Spirit or the Father. The Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

 

[minkymurph]

samiam1611:

The education system sound pretty different over there. Here we have public schools, parochial schools, and private schools. Parochial schools cost money and as far as I know do not get money from the state. Private schools cost a lot of money (~$10,000+ a year) and def don’t get money from the state.

It is. All schools here are funded by the state. Except private schools. But I only know of one private school in my end of the world, and it’s very exclusive. Only REALLY rich people send their kids there. However, in Catholic schools the Church pays for the Religious Education programme. They don’t pay the teachers salary, but they pay something towards the school. ‘Protestant’ schools, or should I say state schools that are not Catholic, are fully funded by the state, including Religious Education which does not include teaching Catholic sacraments.

That’s one of the big debates here - should the state fund faith (Catholic) schools? Being a liberal democracy, they do fund faith schools. Parental choice is advocated, in that if people want to send their kids to faith schools they should be able to do so. They also recognition people have the right not to integrate if you don’t want to, in that integration should not be forced on people who don’t want to integrate, all be it a tacit one. In addition, historically we have two school systems; one Catholic, one Protestant. Needless to say, it costs a lot of money to maintain two state funded school systems. In the current economic climate and from the peace process, a lot of people want schools to be what we call here ‘integrated’ education – Catholics and Protestants being taught together in the same school. It’s fraught with difficulty but I agree with it in principle. After experiencing a Catholic University, and now attending a University everyone goes to, I see the benefits of it. The Catholic college I went to claims they welcome everyone. In theory the do but in practice it doesn’t happen. If your not a cradle Catholic who went to a Catholic school and under 21, you’ll have a hard time fitting in their. As you know, I became a Catholic and I never really felt accepted. I was very unhappy there. I’m happier were I am now and see lots of young people with very different views openly discussing their opinions and getting along. However, there is the argument integrated education only works for people who are open-minded anyway. It’s a hard one in this part of the world to solve, but I do think many Catholic schools are ivory towers that are totally detached from the real world. Big High Schools in inner cities are so much like that, but they do have a ‘this is how we’d like the world to be,’ approach which is never going to become a reality, as opposed to equipping kids to deal with the world as it really is. However, I suppose that’s not unique to Catholic schools.