IFISEEUS
Imminent Fulfillment, Immortality, Safety, Empowerment, Equality, Unity, Society

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
 to one who is striking at the root."
Henry David Thoreau

 

What Do You Believe?
20 Questions

1.      What is soteria (swthria), usually translated “Salvation?”

  1. Having your name written in the book of life with the assurance that you will “go to heaven” at death or the end of the world.
  2. Actually being safe from harm and danger because of the protection of God.
  3. Being physically and psychologically healthy, so as to enjoy the time, family and friends one has in life and so to not alienate people or harm them.
  4. Actually being physically and psychologically safe because of being immortal and empowered along with other members of the human race.
  5. Other:

2.      The word “sin” as a verb is an ancient military term meaning to miss the mark when you are shooting an arrow or throwing a spear, etc., as a noun referring to the distance from the bullseye.  Sin is also used to refer to some underlying condition which causes a person to miss the mark when he is sincerely trying to hit it.  When Jesus used this term did he mean missing the mark primarily in terms of?:

  1. Obeying God’s law.
  2. Behaving perfectly.
  3. Our personal relationship to God.
  4. Our concepts and understanding of God and ourselves.
  5. Other:

3.      What does logos (logos), usually translated “Word” mean?

  1. The Word of God, the message of the Bible.
  2. The New Testament.
  3. The red letter words, the words of Jesus.
  4. A rational truth which can be considered, questioned, discussed and understood; in contrast to mythos, which can only be accepted or rejected because it is beyond our understanding.
  5. Other:

4.      What is the Ecclesia (ekklhsia), usually translated “church” to which Jesus referred?

  1. A special building dedicated to God.
  2. An organization dedicated to furthering the work of God.
  3. A group of people committed to loving and supporting one another in the name of God.
  4. A group of people in an unacceptable and urgent state of affairs, who come together to discuss and figure out what to do about it.
  5. Other:

5.      What is worship?

  1. Partaking in a ceremony that is focused on God.
  2. Coming to “church” once a week.
  3. Singing, praying and talking about God.
  4. Giving credit for the origin, and more especially for the sustenance and enhancement of one’s own life.
  5. Other:

6.      What is the Holy Pneuma, usually translated Holy Spirit?

  1. An incorporeal entity, the third person of the godhead.
  2. The mystical, omnipresence of God.
  3. The non-personal attitude and mentality of the members of the godhead.
  4. The attitude of loving the truth and believing that the truth is important.
  5. Other:

7.      What is the role of the Holy Pneuma

  1. To indwell and control the True Believers.
  2. To act as the conscience of the True Believer.
  3. To influence us to think and behave righteously and morally.
  4. To provide us with mystical experiences such as feeling the presence of God, and to convey messages through visions, voices and dreams.
  5. To lead us into all the truth and a complete understanding of God.
  6. Other:

8.      Usually translated, “soul” in the New Testament, but sometimes “life”, what does the word psyche (yuch) mean, and where does it come from?

  1. The true inner self that comes from God, and departs the body when a person dies.
  2. The immortal “God within” that is all wise, all good and remains untarnished despite even the most sordid of lives.
  3. The personality–foibles, warts and all–that is the product of genetics and environment.
  4. The entire psychology of a person, including the persona and the conscious mind, and the individual’s underlying metaphysics or paradigm. It manifests itself in the personality, attitude, feelings and character of the individual; it is molded, and nurtured or abused by other people, one’s own mental activity and one’s own experiences.
  5. Other:

9.      What does the word  “religion” mean?

  1. A belief system that has enough adherents to be taken seriously.
  2. A belief system that has God as it’s focus.
  3. A belief system that deals with spiritual matters versus secular matters.
  4. Binding people together again through logic.
  5. Other:

10.  What is the Devil DiaboloH) meaning “slanderer” or “divider”?

  1. A Supreme being of evil, possibly immortal.
  2. An angel of the highest rank who has fallen and become hardened in his opposition to God.
  3. The original and prevalent mentality that God is less magnanimous than he really is.
  4. The separated and fallen collective consciousness—comparable to the godhead—to which we belong.
  5. Other:

11.  What is the Bible?

  1. The infallible Word of God.
  2. A newspaper account of history and the plan of salvation, where the good news must be sorted out from the bad.
  3. A collection of human writings that have been influenced by God just enough to give us a chance to know the truth.
  4. The OT is a combination of the history and  mythology of the Hebrew people, and the NT is, with the exception of the valid information about Jesus, the history and  mythology of Paulinist Christendom.
  5. Other:

12.  What is being righteous?

  1. Being in conformity to the “law of God”.  
  2. Being untainted by the ways of the world.
  3. Being warm and loving toward other people.
  4. Being reasonable in the context of the sustenance and enhancement of life.
  5. Other:

13.  What is the structural nature of God?

  1. God is one person, but who can simultaneously perform three different roles
  2. God is one person, but who can put on different faces or persona
  3. God is a corporate being that is composed of three distinct persons in unity
  4. Who can know?
  5. God is a corporate being composed of an unknown number of distinct humans that are in unity
  6. Other:

14.  What is legalism?

  1. Believing that obeying God’s law is the way to righteousness.
  2. Believing that it is important to obey the “law of God” as best we can, with the difference made up for us.
  3. An emphasis upon conformity to the “law of God”.
  4. Any system of thinking where God is conceived to be a law giver.
  5. Other:

15.  What is the Parousia, usually referred to as the “second coming”?

  1. A future event at the end of the world as we know it, where Jesus will come in the clouds with legions of angels and take the righteous to reign with him.
  2. A personal event, where the individual is “raptured” as soon as they are “ready”.
  3. An internal event, which takes place when the individual becomes enlightened enough to achieve “Christ Consciousness”.
  4. A past event, where Jesus came into public prominence through the cross and the resurrection, which served to reveal the character of God.
  5. Other:

16.  What is the nature of “Truth”?

  1. Truth is relative – you have yours and I have mine.
  2. The Truth can never be fully known, but we will spend eternity learning about it.
  3. Truth is self-created, it is manifested from one’s beliefs.
  4. Truth is the adequately complete, big-picture understanding or ourselves, God, and reality.
  5. Other:

17.  What is hell?

  1. A place or situation of eternal fiery torture for the wicked.
  2. The temporary “Lake of Fire” that consumes the wicked at the end of this world.
  3. The state of being lost and dead forever.
  4. The vicissitudes of this world/life.
  5. There is no such place; the words “hades” and “gehenna” refer to places other than the Christian “Hell”.
  6. Other:

18.  What is believing?

  1. Hanging onto what you’ve been taught as hard as you can, for as long as you can, despite the winds of change and challenging evidence to the contrary.
  2. Holding to a given set of concepts composed of knowledge and opinions, though not necessarily one’s own.
  3. Having faith that Jesus “did it all.”
  4. Taking responsibility for actively choosing what you hold to be true, and ultimately putting your life on the line for it.
  5. Other:

19.  In John 17, Jesus called for unity of the believers in the most emphatic and eloquent way.  What is the unity that he calls for?

  1. Belonging to a congregation where everyone holds the same doctrines.
  2. Belonging to a PLU (People Like Us) congregation and getting along.
  3. Belonging to a congregation of People Not Like Us and getting along.
  4. Unity of purpose, values and concepts of God and ourselves.
  5. Other:

20.  Jesus is often quoted as saying  “if two or three of you agree on anything, ask whatever you will and it will be given you”.  If Jesus was for real, why does this seldom if ever happen?

  1. Jesus spoke in parables and symbolic terms; we can’t take sayings like this literally.
  2. This promise is only in effect when other stringent qualifications are met, such as believing hard enough or having enough faith.
  3. It only happens when we correctly ascertain and “pray the will of God”.
  4. The text, more accurately translated, says “when two or three of you agree on everything that matters…”; it will only happen after two or three, (or more) have come into real unity of purpose, values, and concepts.
  5. Other: