Arad9

Last time I checked Christianity was well rooted in the east before the Romans and Constatine got a hold of it. We can also concluded that the pagans tampered with the religion to try to infuse Christianity with there pagan beliefs not to mention other heresies. If you read about the early church fathers they were mostly from the east. And about all this "new" stuff that your reading or studying, I think the Church Fathers had already dealt with these ideas when it was "new" to them.

America hye you always make statments with no facts.

From the way Arpa is writing he makes it seems he has proof God doesn't exsist, and whoever believe in God is stupid and is not worthy of Arpas time. If you can prove that there is no God then you have proven your point and I won't talk about God any more, if you can't then don't make yourself smarter then everyone else. As well as the teenager thats was testing his spirituality, I am ashamed of you. Instead of supporting the "Armenian Culture" you believe in, by denying God and have a passionate hate toward the Armenian Church. You are definitely showing your true colors.

Actually Sri says Christians and the Apostles as well, misunderstood Jesus's teaching and that there are wrong Christ.

unless you are trying to cross a street in New York City, hoping that you and the cab drivers have the same illusion.

Armat jan, if the Armenian youth want Church activities they should be an active part of the Church. I don't blame the kids, I blame the parents mostly. You think out of a busy work week a parent could make some time to establish a childs religious upbringing? I grew up in the Church, went to sunday school, learned the bible, sang songs, went to Church camp and was an active member of my Church. If my parents didn't make an effort for me to be a part of the community them who is to blame? After a certian age I enjoyed going to Church more and more. And about the Baptist, if you feel that Church should be that way, then why don't you gather your friends sings songs and praise God like they do. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is a great difference what Armenians have done for over 1000 years and what the Baptist do on Sundays. And about the "crying" style, I think you have a misunderstanding.Our singing at certian parts of the Badarak is thunderous and joyous! and at other parts of the Badarak is more on self reflection. If anyone has honest and sincere questions about our Badarak or Church I would love to help them with the best of my abilities. I am happy there is at least some interest in our Church.

From my experience I believe that the resposiblity of mostly falls on the individuals and not on the Church(as a institution). There is a famous saying that comes from the bible, ask and you shall recieve. I bet if a DerHayr came upto a your typical Armenian and asked him to join him in a bible study you will find the typical Armenian would have aleast a half a dozen excuses before the end of the DerHayr's invitation. Is that the Churchs fault or the fault of the people, the last time I checked, in order for a Church to exist it must have people. I couldn't have said it better myself. It is in some part in the Diaspora. We have become to secularized and forgotten one of the foundations of being an Armenian.

Hello Forum, I have heard different dates that Armenia converted to Christianity as a nation. I would like to know what dates the members of this forum know.

Hey Arpa I just read your comments on the Armenian Church in Bangladesh, it looks like you have a lot in common with what you thought about Jesus. Here is a the reply that was given to you by ARTO11 and your what he thought of your comments.Your statements are the ones with the question marks. After making comments like that what would you expect as a reply? It looks like you are hateful to the Armenian Church out of emtional reasons. I would like to know what is causing such a passionate hate toward your heritage(if you are Armenian).

so what if he was homless? Just because one offers wine doesn't make him a wino. NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS For the New Testament, the evidence is overwhelming. There are 5,366 manuscripts to compare and draw information from, and some of these date from the second or third centuries. To put that in perspective, there are only 643 copies of Homer’s Illiad, and that is the most famous book of ancient Greece! No one doubts the text of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, but we only have 10 copies of it and the earliest of those was made 1,000 years after it was written. To have such an abundance of copies for the New Testament from dates within 70 years of their writing is amazing. With all those manuscripts, there are a lot of little differences. It is easy for someone to leave the wrong impression by saying that there are 200,000 “errors” that have crept into the Bible when the word should be “variants.” A variant is counted any time one copy is different from any other copy and it is counted again in every copy where it appears. So when a single word is spelled differently in 3,000 copies, that is counted as 3,000 variants. In fact, there are only 10,000 places where variants occur and most of those are matters of spelling and word order. There are less than 40 places in the New Testament where we are really not certain which reading is original, but not one of these has any effect on a central doctrine of the faith. Note: the problem is not that we don’t know what the text is, but that we are not certain which text has the right reading. We have 100 percent of the New Testament and we are sure about 99.5 percent of it. But even if we did not have such good manuscript evidence, we could actually reconstruct almost the entire New Testament from quotations in the church fathers of the second and third centuries. Only eleven verses are missing, mostly from 2 and 3 John. Even if all the copies of the New Testament had been burned at the end of the third century, we could have known virtually all of it by studying these writings. Some people have balked that inerrancy is an unprovable doctrine because it refers only to the original inspired writings, which we don’t have and not to the copies that we do have. But if we can be this certain of the text of the New Testament and have an Old Testament text that has not changed in 2,000 years, then we don’t need the originals to know what they said. The text of our modern Bibles is so close to the original that we can have every confidence that what it teaches is truth. SUMMARY This chapter has shown that the Bible is the Word of God. This teaching stands on no lesser authority than Jesus Christ Himself, who confirmed the inspiration of the Old Testament and promised the New Testament. The testimony of Jesus and the apostles is that the Bible is inerrant in what it teaches about all matters, down to the tenses of verbs and the very last letters of words. Also we have a great deal of evidence to show that the Bibles we have in our hands represent the original manuscripts with a very high degree of accuracy, like no other book from the ancient world. The Bible in your hand is God speaking to you. Geisler, N. L., & Brooks, R. M. 1990. When skeptics ask . Victor Books: Wheaton, Ill.

Ok we got some replies, I hope America-Hye can back-up his negative statement, and now I have another question for you guys. If Jesus exhisted them what can we conclude about his empty tomb?

Alright! got a couple more reponses, Seaphan and Harut, I mean did he actually exist. Thanks guys!

Wow, I have only gotten 3 replies I guess it is a harder question that I expected considering in the other forums members were quick to post. I wonder why...Hey Seaphan,Arpa,MJ,Harut, Axel, THOT, and a whole list of members, lets hear from you guys. I really want to know what you guys think.

I worked with a guy who was from Banglesdesh. He considered himself a devote Muslim. One day he got up set and said "Jesus Christ!". I went over to him and told him, from now on when I get upset I going say "Oh Mohammed!" he looked a bit preplexed when I said that. And I explained to him what that phrase actually means. He apolgized for his mistake, and understood that using Christ's name was taken in vain. This reminds me of a joke I once heard, an Armenian has an American friend as they grow older the American's mother dies and the Armenian goes to her funeral. In sincerity during the funeral the Armenian asks his American friend,"How are you doing?" and the American replies, "fine thanks how are you?". It is a shamed that people say alot of things reflexively instead of really thinking of what they are saying. Which reminds me of another story. A associate of mine who worked in the UN told me that the when the Americans working in the consolate in Armenia they experienced culture shock when they asked an Armenian how the are doing, and the Armenian gave an actual extensive reply.

Was Jesus a historical person

I think there some confusion by what is meant to the "don’t judge" phrase that is commonly taken out of context. Here are the words of Jesus from the book of Matthew 15 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” Read the whole chapter of matthew 23 http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?p...nglish&x=10&y=4 My point is Jesus didn't just teach the health and wealth gospel. He spoke the truth, and sometimes the truth offends people.

So Sasun's a Christian, huh????? Here is Sasun's Quote

In my reply before I thought you were preaching Jengis Khan. I thought you were preaching to the Armenians about a person that killed them. That is my fault.And About lying, you claim you believe in Jesus do you believe in his resurrection? Do you believe in His teachings? The main reason why I don’t want to talk to you is that you go on and on preaching, as well as answering yourself, a faith that is destructive (not to mention self centered) to the Armenian Church.I can give you exact details where Sri Chinmoy's teachings are contrary, not to mention destructive, not just to the Armenian Church but to Christianity.

There is relevancy between the Armenian and the Jewish because, there is a great degree of direct responsibility. And about the Armenians recognizing another genocide please show me where the Armenians have directly denied or partook in direct denial of other genocide’s. And don’t give me the answer that just because we didn’t speak up against it makes us responsible, please point the finger to the countries that carried out the Genocide’s first. How would you purpose that the Armenian’s could help the situation of the other genocide’s? If we did would the world really care?

If anyone here reads the Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian by Yair Auron. It would seem to make more sense what Arpa is talking about. Here is a small excerpt I remember from the book. In schools(Jewish Schools) there is no mention of the Armenian Genocide in any of the history books. So the children regardless of their age when they are taught history, it excludes the Armenian Genocide. Does anyone here in this forum thinks that this is unintentional? There is only a small reference about Abdul Hammid or the Red Sultan and a massacre of Armenians. And according to this book (Banality of Denial....)written by a Jewish, Zionist who is also a professor in Israel(Yair Auron), concludes that Jews play both sides of the field.

Sasun I’m really not interested in your theology. If you want to believe you are a god go ahead. I simply don’t care to have a conversation with you is that ok with you? If I were to talk to you it’s going to take hours and hours of discussion to refute stupid theology. I’m simply not interested, if people want to believe in your guru let them. Domino I answered this part by asking you a question, it is evident by your reply that you don’t have an answer to my question. I answered this already but here it goes again. God doesn’t foreknow. He simply knows. If now I know the spurs won the basketball championship does that mean the New Jersey nets didn’t have a chance then to win? God knows tomorrow the way we know yesterday.

Domino Have I answered your question?

Just for the record me and Sauson don’t believe the same thing. We are very different as a mater of a fact me and Stormy are much closer in theology then me and sasun.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Even though this verse has been overused, still in Christianity God is personal. I understand some of your point that if we follow the absolute rules, but show me an example of how that conflicts with freewill? Is a person bound without a choice in life? God doesn’t foreknow, God knows, God works outside of time and space. Its kind of like watching a movie, God can fast forward to a point in history or God can rewind to a time in history. From our view he foreknows, from his view he just knows. Which prayers are you talking about that have wheeling and dealing? Please show me an example. When I realized what our church is all about, the prayers became more personal, inspiring,humbling and beautiful to put it shortly.

So what you are telling me, that if you and God disagree on a decision, then that means God is toying with you? Please give me an example how God would “toy” with you. Oh! I get it, God knows everything that’s going on and God is not telling you. That ‘s why God is toying with you right? C’mon be serious. What about your ability to impact anything? Do you think that you can or can’t? You think God is the great puppeteer and you are the puppet? That God pulls a persons strings to kill? Is that what you are suggesting? You are confusing freewill and foreknowledge. God has the ability to look at things outside of time-space. It looks like you are saying if a person believes in God then he becomes a robot and has no freewill. On the contrary just because we can have this conversation is in fact evidence of freewill don’t you agree? And Domino here is a situation for you. If a kid comes into a kitchen while your cooking and you tell the kid don’t touch the stove its hot, and the kid touches the stove knowingly and purposely, who did the burning, you for cooking or the kid for touching the stove? Please give me an answer.