So rather than change, they change the focus from where their theology is wrong to focusing on the messenger, me.
Oh, so we're all supposed to change/conform to someone's personal brand of theology? Even if the messenger is the inventor?
No, that's not the point. No one, myself included is telling you that you have to change/conform to the biblical perspective of what I've said. But these are message boards and last I looked, we are allowed to give our opinion of what we believe the Bible says on a given issue without the threat of being character assassinated.[/size][/font]
I guess that "rather than change" statement threw me off. You know like change as in conform. Change their minds. I guess what you're really getting at are ad hominem attacks. Which is attacking the person rather than the subject matter. The problem in a situation like this is, what if I were to make blanket statements along the lines of "Jesus was really an android"? Now is someone supposed to address such a statement from a Scriptural theological standpoint? Let's say they do, but I persist in maintaining my position. Now of course I wouldn't have a Scriptural or theological leg to stand on to maintain my position, so I'd have to resort to strategy. Maybe I've read a few books with titles like "How to never lose an argument". I realize in this forum that people are supposed to be allowed to give their opinion of what we believe the Bible says. But I will say this. If it's an opinion, than it should be clearly stated as such, rather than being presented as if it were a fact. If a person has no direct Scriptural backing to support their belief, then they should be clear about that, instead of dodging that point and trying to intellectualize their way around it.
So rather than them seeing anything wrong on their end, they go so low as to accuse me of all manner of evil in the hopes that this refocusing on me will deflect away from them and their defects.
The pendulum has swung both ways in those regards.
I have not accused you of all manner of evil in hopes of refocusing away from me.
Untrue. You have accused me of having ulterior motives which I did not have. (not to mention being in legue with Satan)
I had no hopes of refocusing away from you. Take a look at my activity record here. I'm barely here anymore. If you see a day where I haven't posted, it's most likely a day I haven't been here period, even to lurk. a few days ago, I started a post, this post. Where the focus (on my part) was a huge dichotomy in Catholicism regarding Salvation. When I came back to it, it had gone in different directions. Which is fine.
But I did not try reading through all of the posts to try figuring out what different direction it had taken.
Where you and I got into it was post 163 & 165 - exclusively. Quite frankly I have no idea where the focus had gone or what you had been trying to establish overall. So it would be impossible to try deflecting, or whatever it is you're accusing me of. I have yet to read more than like 10% of my own thread, beyond our discourse. So you have falsely accused me in these regards. In other words, you were mistaken. Simple as that. Nothing involving Satan. Nothing involving the wrath of God. You simply came to an erroneous conclusion.
Hey, they did it to Jesus when He brought to light all the bad theology of the Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees. And look what they did to Him. First, to deflect attention away from themselves they accuse Him of having a demon, being a drunkard and one who eats with sinners and born illegitimately. When that deflection didn't work they crucified Him.
I know Jesus. Jesus is a friend of mine. You are not Jesus.
But, Brian, you see, that is where you are wrong. Everyone who is a true, genuine believer is Jesus. We have the spirit of Christ in us. We are in fact in the body of Christ and one member can't say to another member "I have no need of you." We as a plurality of believers are also the temple of God. So if you mistreat me you in fact mistreat Jesus.
When the nations will persecute Christ's brethren Christ will tell them" "When you do it to the least of these My brethren, you do it to Me." When Paul persecuted Christ's brethren Christ said: "I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest."
Good point. It sorta sounded like you were exalting yourself there. And you do realize in the process reducing me to the position of a Pharisee? In other words, perhaps not part of the body. Perhaps accusing me of not really being a Christian. Simply because I called your modus operandi into question, out of genuine worry. The thing is Tony, this occurs all the time within the body of Christ. Was Paul for instance attacking the character of, or persecuting the Corinthians? Not that I'm putting myself in the role of Paul or you in the role of the Corinthians.
But I think it's a closer analogy than one of Christ and the Pharisees, in this instance.
I see these people are not repenting of this abuse of me so I must *sigh* give them over to God and let Him deal with them.
May He be merciful to them in that day
Do you like consider yourself God's anointed one? His special messenger, bringing special truth?
And that God will actually hold those accountable on that day who don't hold thee in the highest of esteem and that thou art beyond any reproach?
Brian, you keep deflecting away from the real problem. It is not about me wanting people to hold me in highest esteem or that I believe I am beyond reproach. The point is what you and Nathan were doing in your attempts to character assassinate me because I held views different from you guys. You two got frustrated so you lashed out at the messenger. I am in Christ. I am a believer. Christ's spirit is in me. So when you abuse me, you abuse Christ. And what if I am a messenger of God? Where does that leave you who abuse such ones?
Well first of all, you need to stop lumping me and Nathan together. When I asked him what he had written that he was wondering if he would get banned for, I honestly didn't know, because I hadn't been following my thread. I certainly had no idea it was something he had said about you.
I don't know Nathan very well, I really have no real idea of what his theological stances are. I only sided with his appraisal of your modus operandi as stated in the beginning of post 168, which he had to direct me to. So you see, for me the focus was your modus operandi, rather than a deflection. Now here's where I made some bad mistakes. Not bad mistakes that put me in league with Satan or would invoke the Wrath of God. But bad mistakes nonetheless. First of all, I should have read the entire thread to see exactly what prompted Nathan to say what he had to say about you. In not doing so I of course read it out of context. Then coupled it with a lengthy PM session with you. My statements were based much more on my PM's with you, than anything being discussed in this thread, so again, I had no agenda to "deflect".
Now here's where I repent (no salivating now
). I most certainly have not been of sound mind and body the last couple of days, having been afflicted with the flu, which included running a fever. Not being of sound mind, I had no business posting anything about anything anywhere. I woke up this morning with all of this previous discourse swirling through my head, and felt the Holy Spirit convicting me for a lack of temperance. While I was not of sound enough mind to be making statements, I was aware that I wasn't of sound mind. It's like I had the presence of mind to know it was a bad idea for me go get in my car and get on the freeway in my condition, I should have known better than to post in my condition as well.
So, I, Brian, publicly apologize for anything I said about you, Tony N, in this thread. 
