Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jrossi@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Joe Rossi) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Why invoke the Saints? Message-ID: Date: 9 Jun 90 02:40:31 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Jet Propelled Lab - Pasadena CA Lines: 50 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article pmafire!geoff@uunet.uu.net (Geoff Allen) writes: >>When we can pray directly to God. > >Because Jesus *is* God. Praying to Jesus is praying to God. thanks for the response. for me this answer is too simple. one might argue that Jesus is only one of three people in the Trinity. in this respect than, he is only a mental concept of mine [partly derivative from cultural conditioning] a bearded semetic man in a white robe and sandals. Jesus taught us to pray to the Father. He didn't say Pray to the Father while I am here, but when I die and go to heaven, pray to me. Also, heavily suggested is that we pray to God, in Jesus's name. I surmise this is akin to invoking the name of Jesus as some sort of calling card i.e. "Tell him Jesus sent you." Otherwise the man behind the counter will be too busy. >>I don't understand why we can see God in the Bible, >>But not in the tree that became the Bible. > >Because Christianity isn't pantheistic. God isn't in the tree in the >pantheistic sense. He's only there in the sense that you can see in the >tree the wonder of His creation. In the Bible, we see His explanation >of life to us. In both cases, we see His work, not Him directly. Well, this is a personal opinion, but in seeing God's creative wonder in the tree of life, I "sense" [read: feel in my heart] more of God, than in the Bible. His explanation [The Bible] works for me to a limited degree, but it falls short on some answers, and I'm left looking at the tree. In the tree I see Life. I see God as Love, and Life as Love alive within its own creation. The Bible only works for me in the same way violence works for me in suspensful movies, or the way a Stephen King novel works for me. I dislike violence, but in the drama of life, there needs to be darkness to pitch the light against. The Bible has lot of violence, genocide, hatred, promiscuity, hypocrisy, etc. but in the end a little light shines through: Christ. I'm a here and now person. The Bible is there and then. I see how the here and now, there and then, made the writings of the Bible, but somehow I don't see God's Word as being imprisoned in the past. God is a creative God, and his creativity is expressed continously in the words and deeds of all his children. -- "...it seldom turns out the way it does in the song." **********************STANDARD DISCLAIMER******************************