What is your opinion about the Holy Spirit?

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pandabear
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16 Feb 2011, 5:44 pm

Well?

pandabear
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16 Feb 2011, 7:09 pm

From Wikipedia

Quote:

The Holy Spirit is understood to be one of the three persons of the Trinity. As such he is personal and also fully God, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and Son of God. He is different from the Father and the Son in that he proceeds from the Father (or from the Father and the Son) as described in the Nicene Creed. His sacredness is reflected in the New Testament gospels.

The Holy Spirit is believed to perform specific divine functions in the life of the Christian or the church. These include:

1. Conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit acts to convince the unredeemed person both of the sinfulness of their actions, and of their moral standing as sinners before God.

2. Bringing to conversion. The action of the Holy Spirit is seen as an essential part of the bringing of the person to the Christian faith. The new believer is "born again of the Spirit".

3. Enabling the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is believed to dwell in the individual believers and enable them to live a righteous and faithful life.

4. As a comforter or Paraclete, one who intercedes, or supports or acts as an advocate, particularly in times of trial.

5. Inspiration and interpretation of scripture. The Holy Spirit both inspires the writing of the scriptures and interprets them to the Christian and/or church.

The Holy Spirit is also believed to be active especially in the life of Jesus Christ, enabling him to fulfill his work on earth. Particular actions of the Holy Spirit include:

1. Cause of his birth. According to the gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus, he was not conceived by a human father, but by the Holy Spirit; and he was born of the Virgin Mary. The "beginning of His incarnate existence" was due to the Holy Spirit. The Apostles' Creed says Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary." However, this comes from the translation of Hebrew to Greek, then Greek to English. The original Hebrew translation is that Jesus was "born of a young woman."

2. Anointing him at his baptism.

3. Empowerment of his ministry. The ministry of Jesus following his baptism (in which the Holy Spirit is described in the gospels as "descending on Him like a dove") is conducted in the power and at the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Christians believe that the Holy Spirit gives 'gifts' to Christians. These gifts consist of specific abilities granted to the individual Christian.[9] They are frequently known by the Greek word for gift, Charisma, from which the term charismatic derives. The New Testament provides three different lists of such gifts which range from the supernatural (healing, prophecy, tongues) through those associated with specific callings (teaching) to those expected of all Christians in some degree (faith). Most consider these lists not to be exhaustive, and other have compiled their own lists. Saint Ambrose wrote of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out on a believer at baptism (Isaiah 11:1-2): 1. Spirit of Wisdom; 2. Spirit of Understanding; 3. Spirit of Counsel; 4. Spirit of Strength; 5. Spirit of Knowledge; 6. Spirit of Godliness; 7. Spirit of Holy Fear.

techstepgenr8tion
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16 Feb 2011, 7:11 pm

To paraphrase the poll question: How Catholic are you?

ryan93
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16 Feb 2011, 7:32 pm

"deny" implies I'm wrong, like a holocaust denier. So I went with "dumb"

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TeaEarlGreyHot
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16 Feb 2011, 7:37 pm

I don't vote in biased polls.

I believe the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost is a load of crap. We all get bad feelings about things that aren't good... it's a survival mechanism. Not some ethereal being whispering to us to be good.

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Philologos
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16 Feb 2011, 7:53 pm

Opinion?

like definition, interaction, or some aesthetic?

L'Esprit is maybe a pol so I can opine on him like I opine on Obama?

pgd
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16 Feb 2011, 8:02 pm

What is your opinion about the Holy Spirit? The holy spirit is an idea from the Old Testament (Judaism) generally used to indicate a move toward a righteous action vs an action of iniquity. The modern holy spirit (2011) is misused along the lines of: The holy spirit told George Bush, Jr. that torture (waterboarding) in Iraq/Afghanistan is good; the holy spirit told Obama that torture (waterboarding) in Iraq/Afghanistan is bad; the holy spirit told the televangelist to ask for a love offering gift to pay for the televangelist's new corporation jet; the holy spirit told the Pope of Italy to start the Spanish Inquisition and burn heretics to death; the holy spirit told Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas to picket at USA funerals of persons who died who did not subscribe to the infallible dogma of the Westboro church. Other insights into the idea of a holy spirit - bicameral mind, TLE/temporal lobe epilepsy/hallucinogens such as LSD and so on. Other words: rabbit's foot, the feather Dumbo the elephant used to fly with, a good luck horseshoe, etc. - Politics, philosophy, religion

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16 Feb 2011, 8:22 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

To paraphrase the poll question: How Catholic are you?

Where were you when you woke up this morning?

The Holy Spirit is NOT a Catholic exclusive.

leejosepho
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16 Feb 2011, 10:35 pm

Holy = Set Apart

Nice idea.

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16 Feb 2011, 11:58 pm

I like the holy spirit. despite my dislike for christianity, i have no problem with the trinity. :pig:

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ruveyn
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17 Feb 2011, 7:10 am

richardbenson wrote:

I like the holy spirit. despite my dislike for christianity, i have no problem with the trinity. :pig:

If I were inclined to worship multiple gods I would become a Hindu. They have six million gods which is a lot more than a paltry three.

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pgd
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17 Feb 2011, 8:44 am

What is your opinion about the holy spirit? In my view, the holy spirit is like that statue of Walt Disney pointing with one hand and holding the hand of Mickey Mouse with his other hand.

Moses and the Holy Spirit

The gospel writers and the Holy Spirit

Walt Disney and the holy spirit of Mickey Mouse

---

Dove vs a Mouse

Birds vs Creatures such as a mouse (Mickey Mouse) or a cricket (Jiminy Cricket)

pandabear
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17 Feb 2011, 10:01 am

I noticed that the Wikipedia used the male pronoun 'he' for the Holy Spirit. I had previously envisioned the Holy Spirit as some sort of vapour that goes around, making people speak in tongues, inspiring people to write scripture, impregnating virgins, etc. As an imaginary vapour, I would have used the pronoun "it" rather than "he."

But, the Holy Spirit is one of God's persons, and the Father and Son are both male, so the Holy Spirit must also be male, if it (or he) is indeed a person.

Do the Catholics have any statues or pictures of the Holy Spirit, the way they do for the Father and the Son? What does the Holy Spirit supposedly look like? Another old man with a beard?

Where does the Holy Spirit first appear in the Bible? In the Torah, everyone is speaking directly with one god, who must be the Father. God the Son is sill sitting in Heaven at that point. What is the Holy Spirit up to?

Natty_Boh
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17 Feb 2011, 10:50 am

pandabear wrote:

Two sentences in, in Genesis 1:2: "The earth was without form and void, and...the Spirit (/breath/wind - Hebrew 'ruach') of God was moving over the face of the waters." Classical description of the Spirit is of it as the "breath" of God by which the Word (=the Son) is spoken; the usual depiction in art is a dove, though, drawing on the accounts of Jesus' baptism.

It's hard to gain an understanding of the Spirit as a Person instead of a force employed by God - there's much less to go on. It is easy to slip into "it" instead of "he", on that basis.

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pandabear
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17 Feb 2011, 11:16 am

Was the Spirit ever described as a Person, prior to the writing of the Creeds?

Philologos
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17 Feb 2011, 1:11 pm

pandabear wrote:

Was the Spirit ever described as a Person, prior to the writing of the Creeds?

Of course the creeds predate their writing, but I will adjust the question.

There is in the NT, as it happens, some interesting mobility of the gender of the Spirit, which suggests personality is assumed. Compare the gender shift in Petros. But of course, that could have snuck into the manuscript tradition as the theology [pneumatology must be a course in somebody's seminary] developed. We notoriously cannot find the autographs in the archives in Hawaii.

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