Comparative Religions and Denominations

Psalm 90:The days of our years are threescore years and ten;

and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

yet is their strength labor and sorrow;

for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Since a score is 20, threescore and ten means 70; fourscore is 80.

Actually not a lot except for the feeling that being "good" is better for the followers than being "bad". Examples:

• They all worship a god or gods - except of course for Buddhism
• They all believe in reincarnation - except for Christians and Muslims
• They don't revere Jesus as a divinity - except for Christians
• They all have teachings common to the earliest of the group - Hinduism
• They all have creation myths - except for Buddhists
• They feel man's "salvation" is essentially his own concern - except Jews, Christians and Muslims

The anti - Christ means a person recognized as fulfilling the Biblical prophecies about one who will oppose Christ and substitute himself in Christ's place.

The Antichrist can be any person or spirit that leads one to believe that Jesus Christ is not the only Begotten Son of God and did not come in the name of God to do the will of the Father. An Antichrist will declare that Jesus is not the Savior of the world.>

Answer There are quite a number, probably the chief one being the Gnostic attitude to both the identity of Jesus Christ and the source of authoritative teaching.

Regarding the former, the Gnostics believed that Jesus was some kind of an 'emanation' from God and therefore not identical or co-equal with God the Father as Christians believe. He was regarded by them as somewhat akin to an angel, whereas Christians hold Him to be almighty God and worthy of worship - something which He accepted while on the earth and which no angel will ever accept, as recorded variously in the scripture.

Regarding the latter, the Gnostics believed in special 'knowledge' which only they possessed, hence their name, which comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis. They thus had a source of revelation and authority outside of the Bible, something which Christians reject, especially since it flatly contradicts much which is taught there.

The differences between Gnosticism and modern Christianity are essentially the same as they always were. The Bible is still the ultimate source of authority for Christians and Jesus remains the one true God, co-equal with the Father. Even those who claim today to be bringing a 'revelation from God' only have true Christian legitimacy if what they say is in accord with scripture. A true Bible teacher will encourage people to check what they say against God's revelation. They will not claim to have any kind of new doctrine which somehow overrides or supersedes the scripture as the Gnostics did. Nor will they appeal to the human ego and suggest that they alone are bringing some kind of special teaching or 'knowledge' which no-one else has.

Answer 2: Christians pray to the invoked entity who signs his name with a capital 'G.'

Gnostics acknowledge the existence of a supreme architect, but do not believe that what man perceives to be real as the absolute reality, implying that Man's four dimensional existence resides within a bubble- for lack of a better word surrounded by other aeons/planes of existence/dimensions. Gnosis teaches that the demi-urge manufactured this reality after falling from a higher aeon. It is in the lower aeon that he sought to imprison the divine sparks (the spirits) that were born within the Pleroma inorder to perform his works. Such is also the way of various types of demons that manifest vi

a bloodletting rites, ceremonies and other rituals- including wars between the tribes of Mankind.

Gnostics do not lay claim to possess hidden knowledge that only they know. This is a common misconception within the Christian/Catholic/Orthodox communities as Gnosis teaches that through studying their doctrine, Jesus Christ may choose to appear to you in what science calls "dreams" and teach you to attain Christification in the secrecy of your own soul.

Christians teach that there is only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, whereas Gnostics teach that if you deny the divine feminine Mother Kundalini, you thereby walk half the path an atheist. Thus to follow the path of Gnosis, one must seek Sophia and Jesus Christ.

Some Gnostic communities, while hard to find, also teach that Mary Magdalene was a priestess who may or may have not married Jesus, and who may or may not have given birth to His son. Then again much of the writings of the Gnostics have been suppressed by the followers of Constantine (Order of the Victorious Sun) for well over a thousand years via genocide, rape, assassinations, etcetera- all of which were performed by the blessing hand of the Papacy.

To discover more, pick up the Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic Bible, the Pistis Sophia, etcetera.

Also note that some variations of Gnosticism have been around at least since the second century BCE, and that the proto-Coptic Gnostics of that time foresaw the coming of the Chirst via the Signs.

Actually, I go to a Baptist (born and raised there), and we do believe in infant baptism. It is called "Christening" where we either place holy oil on the infant and the family and give the child back to God or sprinkle water/ oil unto the child's head and also give the child back to God. So, some of the information below is accurate, but not all of it. Both demonations are similar but Presbyterians are more liberal and may celebrate Reformation Day which is on Halloween.

Both Denominations are extremely similar in their reformed theology. However, the effect of liberal doctrines on some denominations can change how reformed they are. The Baptist Church does not believe in infant baptism, though the Presbyterian Church believe in it. If they are not affected by liberal doctrines, some Presbyterian and Baptist Churches have almost the exact ideas on Calvinism. There's probably more to it than I know that others can tell you about.

Also, Baptists immerse, while Presbyterians might "sprinkle", "pour", or "immerse" to baptize.

Their are also political differences, ways their clergy are "called" and methods of "governance". "Presbyterian" implies a representative form of "rule" (with oversight from a larger body of connectional Presbyterian congregations). Baptists are, for the most part, "congregational" with less "oversight" from their denomination.

I am not sure I agree with the above post. Actually Christening was never part of a Baptist mind set, that word originated in the Roman Catholic and Anglican bodies.

I think what you are talking about is Baby dedication, which is entirely different than infant baptism/christening.

Also there are a ton of differences , so I beg to differ with you. Our points of doctrine are not the same. Presbyterians are a Confessional church and Baptist are not.

There are differences in Worship style, Beliefs concerning Communion and Baptism which Presbyterians consider Sacraments, Baptists call ordinances. For Baptists they are memorials ie: Communion or The Lords Supper. Presbyterians believe in the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Presbyerians are Reformed and came out of the Reformation. Primiarily from John Calvin and John Knox of Scotland where the Presbyterian church in America. Canada and Scotland comes from . The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian.

Baptists believe in being Born Again and Presbytrians do not hold this fact. We come from different patterns of thought and practice. There is a group of Baptists called Reformed Baptist that would like to believe they are like us the Presbyterians and or Reformed faith.

The Baptist find it hard to digest abot the Reformed Bapist and the Presbyterians find it some what humorous. Believe what you will, we are far apart.

You have to remember that the Reformed faith ( Presbyterians) broke from the Roman Catholic church. The Baptist church does not claim that they are Protestants or Reformed anything and trace their beginnings to the Bible and John the Baptist.

Baptist Historian Bruce Gourley outlines four main views of Baptist origins: (1) The modern scholarly consensus that the denomination traces its origin to the 17th century via the English_Dissenters, (2) the view that it was an outgrowth of Anabaptist traditions, (3) the perpetuity view which assumes that the Baptist faith and practice has existed since the time of Christ, and (4) the successionist view which argues that Baptist churches actually existed in an unbroken chain since the time of Christ.Answers.com

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The Baptist ecclesial community was founded by John Smyth in Amsterdam in the early 17th century as he rejected the interpretation of the Bible that other protestants in the 16th century had given to the Bible. It has no priesthood, no sacraments (save Baptism), and no guarantees from God.

The law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. The only thing that can happen with energy in an isolated system is that it can change form, for instance kinetic energy can become thermal energy. Because energy is associated with mass in the Einstein's theory of relativity, the conservation of energy also implies the conservation of mass in isolated systems (that is, the mass of a system cannot change, so long as energy is not permitted to enter or leave the system).

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Another consequence of this law is that perpetual motion machines can only work perpetually if they deliver no energy to their surroundings. If such machines produce more energy than is put into them, they must lose mass and thus eventually disappear over perpetual time, and are therefore impossible.

The law of conservation of mass/matter, also known as law of mass/matter conservation says that the mass of a closed system will remain constant, regardless of the processes acting inside the system. A similar statement is that mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, and changed into different types of particles. This implies that for any chemical process in a closed system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products. This is also the central idea behind the first law of thermodynamics.

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The law of "matter" conservation (in the sense of conservation of particles) may be considered as an approximate physical law that holds only in the classical sense, before the advent of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Another difficulty with conservation of "matter" is that "matter" is not a well-defined word in science, and when particles which all consider to be "matter" (such as electrons and positrons) are annihilated to make photons (which are often not considered matter) then conservation of matter does not hold, even in closed systems.

Mass is also not generally conserved in open systems, when various forms of energy are allowed into, or out of, the system (see for example, binding energy). However, the law of mass conservation for closed systems, as viewed over time from any single inertial frame, continues to hold in modern physics.The reason for this is that relativistic equations show that even massless particles such as photons still add mass to closed system.

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Therefore, it allows mass (though not matter) to be conserved in all processes where energy does not escape the system.

The historical concept of both matter and mass conservation is widely used in many fields such as chemistry, mechanics, and fluid dynamics. In modern physics, only mass conservation for closed systems continues to hold exactly.

The conservation of relativistic mass implies the viewpoint of a single observer (or the view from a single inertial frame) since changing inertial frames may result in a change of the total energy (relativistic energy) for systems, and this quantity determines the relativistic mass.

The principle that the mass of a system of particles must be equal to the sum of their rest masses, even though true in classical physics, may be false in special relativity. The reason that rest masses cannot be simply added is that this does not take into account other forms of energy, such as kinetic and potential energy.