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Old 06-11-2008, 02:46 PM   #46
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Re: The poll on aikido spirituality

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Yes, I agree. God does, indeed, define who He is. I believe He has done so, however, in the pages of the Bible.
And elsewhere ...
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Psalm 19 wrote:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Yes, one must be careful not to make the Bible one's God. It is the Word of God, but it is not God Himself.
See there it is again. The Word is Christ himself. The text only testifies to the Word, which is EVERYWHERE, in EVERYTHING. By the Word, all things were made, and to which all things in creation therefore rightly testify. Pagans too, if you listen ...and if you listen hard enough WITH them -- they may actually hear it, too ... instead of hearing us go on about "errors."
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Matthew 7:16-23 (NKJV)
16 You will know them by their fruits. ... by their fruits you will know them.
...Since this is not a Christian apologetics site, I don't think its a good idea to go into more detail than I have about why the Bible is true and Shintoism is not. I may be wrong, but I have studied carefully why I believe what I believe and do not think that I am.
The only fruit that matters is love. I am interested in relating the two expressions of spirituality properly in the right order, nothing else, but that does not entail rejecting what Ueshiba rightly taught from his Shinto understanding. Ueshiba said that True Budo is Love. John 13: 34-35: ""A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So do you reject this teaching, and hold instead that he who follows the new commandment is NOT a disciple ? If not, then you must not reject a teaching that is of love and moves toward love of whatever heritage it may derive, because to do so is to reject the commandment of Jesus Christ and to deny a true disciple.
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Well, as I have already briefly explained, I don't think the Bible is in support of semina verbi.
Coll. 1:23 : "...continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, ..." To every creature. I presume it must therefore be, to whatever degree, somewhere in Ueshiba's teaching, working its purposes -- to be found if we look for it. Since we are all in error, always, what purpose is there in focussing on error -- instead of looking assiduously for the Truth -- which is revealed in all creation as well as in specific scriptural revelation.
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Isaiah 55 wrote:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
.
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
The idea of taking a "truth" from this religion and one from that and subjectively patching together a "truth collage" is very much in the vein of post-modernism.
The Truth is One. It is everywhere. When I see it, I declare it. What do you do? Who is not in error? To declare error is to pass judgment, and we are called to declare Truth -- not judgment.
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Sola Scriptura is for many, many Christians not a problem at all.
A response to THAT would be apologetics, unrelated in anyway to Aikido and of no use to anyone here.
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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
... what spiritual inheritance was mine was bound up in a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ, not "buried in the loves and remembrances of mankind."
I believe the Scripture is the testimony of those who knew Christ in the flesh. Thus, in reading scripture, you are doing exactly what I said , looking for their "gems of love and remembrance." In failing to reach out to the rest of creation in the same spirit and love for the Truth is failing in a duty to make the Truth manifest where it already is -- to those in whose hearts you may uncover it.

This is the purpose of Aikido -- to awaken in us a love of our enemy and thus to uncover for them and in them the Truth by our own sacrifice, as He loved us -- that is True Budo, and thereby we may make them true disciples of the Law of Love. There is nothing apostate in that.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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