# Why do Atheists celebrate Christmas?



## bigbuckhunter1

Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?


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## StriperrHunterr

Which atheists are you referring to? Those completely without families, or those with families? 

I'm an agnostic, but I celebrate it as a family tradition focused on togetherness and the decorations include a tree with our historical ornaments that we put up. To others around me it is more than that, but that's why I celebrate it.


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## JB0704

I work with a Hindu who started celebrating Christmas last year because she didn't want her daughter to feel left out in American culture.  Even though my co-worker grew up in India, she is raising her children here.

It was kind-a cool when she brought in pics of her first Christmas tree, she was very proud of it.


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## 660griz

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I celebrate it as a family tradition focused on togetherness and the decorations include a tree with our historical ornaments that we put up. To others around me it is more than that, but that's why I celebrate it.



Same here.


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## mattech

JB0704 said:


> I work with a Hindu who started celebrating Christmas last year because she didn't want her daughter to feel left out in American culture.  Even though my co-worker grew up in India, she is raising her children here.
> 
> It was kind-a cool when she brought in pics of her first Christmas tree, she was very proud of it.




I think that's awesome. I love America because we can believe and celebrate what we want, but it drives me nuts when people come to this country and expect us to change for them.


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## mattech

I would think this is a good question for a lot of lukewarm Christians as well.


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## bullethead

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?



http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=827606
You can find your answers here...including the "true" meaning.


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## WaltL1

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?


That's kind of like asking why Christians have Christmas trees, give gifts, yule logs etc. Seriously why? Don't they know the true meaning of those things?
Im Agnostic also and celebrate it for the same reasons already given.


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## drippin' rock

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?



I see you have your location as "under a rock".  Maybe that's why you asked this question?


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## Israel

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?



What is _the true_ meaning?
Are you a believer?
If so, what does the phrase "the true" mean, to you?


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## Dr. Strangelove

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?



Do you put up trees and lights and have have Santa Claus and other secular activities? If so, why? If you're so religious, then why celebrate the non-religious aspects?


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## 660griz

mattech said:


> it drives me nuts when people come to this country and expect us to change for them.



Said Chief Sitting Bull.


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## Israel

Dr. Strangelove said:


> Do you put up trees and lights and have have Santa Claus and other secular activities? If so, why? If you're so religious, then why celebrate the non-religious aspects?


That's an interesting question.


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## gordon 2

Dr. Strangelove said:


> Do you put up trees and lights and have have Santa Claus and other secular activities? If so, why? If you're so religious, then why celebrate the non-religious aspects?



I would suggest that the traditional pagan elements of Winter Solstice, events in the physical world , especially light, biological regeneration, death and new life, etc,  that these are used as comparisons, (as in this is like or similar to that) to express the spiritual elements of religious people and communities especially in Christianity. So non-religious or physical aspects of this time of yr for people in the N. Hemisphere, become arbitrary time to celebrate, not only physical reality, but also spiritual reality. The fact that many differing spiritual traditions do this is not an issue.

I suspect that for atheist, the ones that I know, Christmas is an other occasion to lighten up and to do their usual acts of kindness. 

For some people Christmas time of yr, or this holiday time of the yr, is not a fun time, it is filled with bad memories, and it is depressing... Christians included.


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## 660griz

Why do Christians celebrate Christmas? 
http://www.ucg.org/doctrinal-beliefs/christians-who-dont-celebrate-christmas-heres-why/

Why does anyone celebrate Christmas? Various reasons. I do enjoy a day off though.


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## Artfuldodger

Will anyone be celebrating Thor's Day? 
I found the video in bullethead's link interesting.


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## 660griz

Artfuldodger said:


> I found the video in bullethead's link interesting.



Post by AH I think. Good video.

If everyone watched that video, it would answers all the questions about why anyone celebrates Xmas.


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## Asath

Personally, I put up a tree and a Santa and an Elf and a Reindeer and a Yule log and a mess of aluminum tinsel and thousands of colored lights and plastic snowflakes and a little ceramic village and a wreath and lots of shiny colored glass ornaments and buy thousands of dollars worth of gifts and shiny wrapping paper and ribbons and bows and chestnuts and little cheese balls rolled in nuts because it reminds the Christians of the birth of Jesus, and I hate to let them down – it all seems so important to them . . . Oh, and because they own most of the stores that sell me that stuff, so they’ll have enough money to put in the collection basket . . .


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## Artfuldodger

Asath said:


> Personally, I put up a tree and a Santa and an Elf and a Reindeer and a Yule log and a mess of aluminum tinsel and thousands of colored lights and plastic snowflakes and a little ceramic village and a wreath and lots of shiny colored glass ornaments and buy thousands of dollars worth of gifts and shiny wrapping paper and ribbons and bows and chestnuts and little cheese balls rolled in nuts because it reminds the Christians of the birth of Jesus, and I hate to let them down – it all seems so important to them . . . Oh, and because they own most of the stores that sell me that stuff, so they’ll have enough money to put in the collection basket . . .



I thought you might have died and went to Heaven.
Anyway I think we've been waiting on your response on the "arrogant Atheist" thread.


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## Asath

To be honest, Artful, I considered a response to that one, and still don’t rule it out, but then realized that much of the work and research and logical construction that goes into a thoughtful and well argued rejoinder is fully wasted in this forum.  It seems most times a bit like spitting into the Grand Canyon, or shouting into a bottomless abyss and waiting a few lifetimes for an echo.  Folks who are so disconnected from themselves and the possibilities that actual freedom offers them that they need to rely on the invisible and the conjecture of the impossible in order to find peace of mind really can’t be confronted in any rational terms.  Their world, and the actual world, are not the same place.  We see a volcanic eruption, or a tornado, or what have you – they see God’s justice visited upon a sinful world.  That gap just can’t be bridged.  As Stevie Wonder said in the song, “If you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”

     But many, if not most of the ‘believers’ consider their suffering to be somehow noble, rather than self-imposed and shamefully ignorant, and prefer prayer to action.  That this is actually cowardice and irresponsibility in practice escapes them, and they will argue until they wear out their keyboards that their lives are out of their hands, predestined by their ‘God,’ and that their own actions have no bearing, and they will be somehow magically ‘forgiven’ in the end and raised to some exalted and idyllic eternity.  You just can’t bother wasting too much time on that sort of self-delusion.  We’ve got better things to do, like providing them with all of those things like medicine and objective law and the manifestations of the evil sciences that their Book oddly failed to mention.  I’ve read the darned, confounding, disconnected, contradictory mess of that Book a few dozen times in a dozen different editions, and not once did I find a reference to by-pass surgery or electricity or how to sanitize water so that folks might actually drink it. 

     Undeterred, the zealots do what zealots do – they attack – mindlessly, thoughtlessly, with no hesitation, and with no responsibility to actually be right. ‘ Belief,’ you might notice, is a very effective political strategy – it places itself above and apart from truth and facts, and labels any disagreement as ‘hating’ or ‘denying’ or ‘heresy.’  Thus the history of the world – no truth to stand on, persecution of those who seek the genuine truth, endless revisions when the real truth becomes undeniable, and the constant reliance on bullying and the fallacy of consensus gentium.  Rather like dealing with stubborn three-year-olds who stick out their bottom lip and stubbornly demand, “Why,” without any hope of actually understanding the answers.

     It can’t really be changed.  The Belief industry has grown far too wealthy and far too well entrenched to ever stop the brainwashing, and the overall populace is far too lazy and willfully uneducated to question their assumed ‘authority’ figures, and it is much easier for them to follow than to think.  Nothing much I can do about that, but to observe from afar, and feel sorry for them.


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## Israel

Asath said:


> To be honest, Artful, I considered a response to that one, and still don’t rule it out, but then realized that much of the work and research and logical construction that goes into a thoughtful and well argued rejoinder is fully wasted in this forum.  It seems most times a bit like spitting into the Grand Canyon, or shouting into a bottomless abyss and waiting a few lifetimes for an echo.  Folks who are so disconnected from themselves and the possibilities that actual freedom offers them that they need to rely on the invisible and the conjecture of the impossible in order to find peace of mind really can’t be confronted in any rational terms.  Their world, and the actual world, are not the same place.  We see a volcanic eruption, or a tornado, or what have you – they see God’s justice visited upon a sinful world.  That gap just can’t be bridged.  As Stevie Wonder said in the song, “If you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”
> 
> But many, if not most of the ‘believers’ consider their suffering to be somehow noble, rather than self-imposed and shamefully ignorant, and prefer prayer to action.  That this is actually cowardice and irresponsibility in practice escapes them, and they will argue until they wear out their keyboards that their lives are out of their hands, predestined by their ‘God,’ and that their own actions have no bearing, and they will be somehow magically ‘forgiven’ in the end and raised to some exalted and idyllic eternity.  You just can’t bother wasting too much time on that sort of self-delusion.  We’ve got better things to do, like providing them with all of those things like medicine and objective law and the manifestations of the evil sciences that their Book oddly failed to mention.  I’ve read the darned, confounding, disconnected, contradictory mess of that Book a few dozen times in a dozen different editions, and not once did I find a reference to by-pass surgery or electricity or how to sanitize water so that folks might actually drink it.
> 
> Undeterred, the zealots do what zealots do – they attack – mindlessly, thoughtlessly, with no hesitation, and with no responsibility to actually be right. ‘ Belief,’ you might notice, is a very effective political strategy – it places itself above and apart from truth and facts, and labels any disagreement as ‘hating’ or ‘denying’ or ‘heresy.’  Thus the history of the world – no truth to stand on, persecution of those who seek the genuine truth, endless revisions when the real truth becomes undeniable, and the constant reliance on bullying and the fallacy of consensus gentium.  Rather like dealing with stubborn three-year-olds who stick out their bottom lip and stubbornly demand, “Why,” without any hope of actually understanding the answers.
> 
> It can’t really be changed.  The Belief industry has grown far too wealthy and far too well entrenched to ever stop the brainwashing, and the overall populace is far too lazy and willfully uneducated to question their assumed ‘authority’ figures, and it is much easier for them to follow than to think.  Nothing much I can do about that, but to observe from afar, and feel sorry for them.


I do believe much of what you write.
There is an industry that makes merchandise of men and their lives like a machine fitting cogs to its wheels to keep itself churning. 
Rage against the machine seems at best, even in light of all provocations that argue rightly for it, futile...even as you describe. 

You present your sorrow, observing from afar.
Come a little closer.
That comforting distance of buffer you may find a bit more enemy than friend, as it would appear.
In a world of men whose sufferings threaten to overwhelm and consume, you may find it is not tornado nor volcano nor most virulent plague that terrifies and calls for remedy.
"What" you may say, "what could my simple joining to men possibly effect against all the grief I observe?"
That would be where your own ignorance is revealed...and quite healed.
A man apart, can be made whole.


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## 660griz

Israel said:


> You present your sorrow,



Where did you get 'sorrow' from?


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## Israel

660griz said:


> Where did you get 'sorrow' from?


Do you not see it?


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## GunnSmokeer

*why*

Why do atheists say "goodbye" which is just a contraction for the phrase "God be with ye" ?

Why do Christians observe Halloween? Are they really honoring a pagan holiday about witchcraft and ghosts and all that supernatural stuff?  Or is it just a fun fall holiday used to mark the passing of the seasons to autumn?

Why do Christians throw rice at weddings?  Don't they know that the rice was originally an offering to evil spirits, to prevent the demons  from following the young couple and causing trouble?  Why don't weddings involve actual organized prayer for the couple instead?  Oh, wait. Maybe it's just following tradition and being part of mainstream culture.

For that matter, why do Christians, Jews, and even Muslims celebrate their own birthdays and those of family members and friends?  Doesn't this (temporarily) draw attention and honor from God to some mere man? 
Isn't this living in the world and loving the world, instead of loving God and thinking only of the heavenly kingdom?

 Among Christians, isn't Jesus' birth the only one that matters?  

Maybe with birthdays too, it's a cultural thing, not a religious observance.

Christmas can be a secular holiday. A general winter holiday.  Think of those "Christmas songs" that don't mention either Santa or Baby Jesus, but do talk about sleighs and snow and winter scenes.  Notice that nobody sings those songs after Christmas. That shows that Christmas is THE one and only winter holiday, and everything related to the winter season is part of it.


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## 660griz

Israel said:


> Do you not see it?



Of course not. That is why I asked.


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## Asath

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar, 
From the sphere of our sorrow.     – Shelley

He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.  – Ecclesiates

So which sorrow is it that you feel you have detected?  That of one yearning for a better day, when nonsense is banished to the sidelines and rationality takes hold in the majority?  Or that of one who has learned too much, and despairs of the ignorance that surrounds him?


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## Israel

I have hope it is this, till this be revealed:

And death shall have no dominion.
       Dead men naked they shall be one
       With the man in the wind and the west moon;
       When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
       They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
       Though they go mad they shall be sane,
       Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
       Though lovers be lost love shall not;
       And death shall have no dominion.

       And death shall have no dominion.
       Under the windings of the sea
       They lying long shall not die windily;
       Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
       Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
       Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
       And the unicorn evils run them through;
       Split all ends up they shan't crack;
       And death shall have no dominion.

       And death shall have no dominion.
       No more may gulls cry at their ears
       Or waves break loud on the seashores;
       Where blew a flower may a flower no more
       Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
       Though they be mad and dead as nails,
       Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
       Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
       And death shall have no dominion.

By this:
For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.…


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## 1gr8bldr

Just for the record, I know online Christians who do not celebrate Christmas... due to it's pagan origins


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## Israel

1gr8bldr said:


> Just for the record, I know online Christians who do not celebrate Christmas... due to it's pagan origins


We celebrate many things in our liberty but find liberty is written in a blood not our own.
A carefulness as to what we may come to say..."is of the Lord" can teach us, even in those things so presumably in which Christ's name is included, that a searching out is pressed upon us. 
We may do as taught, or do as we say.
Our care may come in fear of saying what the Lord has not.
As to this particular celebration, a man may have as much or little as he sees of the Lord's way in it.


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## JB0704

1gr8bldr said:


> Just for the record, I know online Christians who do not celebrate Christmas... due to it's pagan origins



And I thought boycotting Halloween was extreme......


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## Israel

JB0704 said:


> And I thought boycotting Halloween was extreme......


It is less a boycotting (by some at least), than not letting a thing that could get in the way, present itself for homage.


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## JB0704

Israel said:


> It is less a boycotting (by some at least), than not letting a thing that could get in the way, present itself for homage.



To each his own.


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## SemperFiDawg

JB0704 said:


> And I thought boycotting Halloween was extreme......



Yeah. Me too.


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## EverGreen1231

Asath said:


> To be honest, Artful, I considered a response to that one, and still don’t rule it out, but then realized that much of the work and research and logical construction that goes into a thoughtful and well argued rejoinder is fully wasted in this forum.  It seems most times a bit like spitting into the Grand Canyon, or shouting into a bottomless abyss and waiting a few lifetimes for an echo.  Folks who are so disconnected from themselves and the possibilities that actual freedom offers them that they need to rely on the invisible and the conjecture of the impossible in order to find peace of mind really can’t be confronted in any rational terms.  Their world, and the actual world, are not the same place.  We see a volcanic eruption, or a tornado, or what have you – they see God’s justice visited upon a sinful world.  That gap just can’t be bridged.  As Stevie Wonder said in the song, “If you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”.



I don't think a response would be wasted if it were really as beautifully composed as you claim.



Asath said:


> But many, if not most of the ‘believers’ consider their suffering to be somehow noble, rather than self-imposed and shamefully ignorant, and prefer prayer to action.  That this is actually cowardice and irresponsibility in practice escapes them, and they will argue until they wear out their keyboards that their lives are out of their hands, predestined by their ‘God,’ and that their own actions have no bearing, and they will be somehow magically ‘forgiven’ in the end and raised to some exalted and idyllic eternity.  You just can’t bother wasting too much time on that sort of self-delusion.  We’ve got better things to do, like providing them with all of those things like medicine and objective law and the manifestations of the evil sciences that their Book oddly failed to mention.  I’ve read the darned, confounding, disconnected, contradictory mess of that Book a few dozen times in a dozen different editions, and not once did I find a reference to by-pass surgery or electricity or how to sanitize water so that folks might actually drink it. .


 
All scientists of all the ages have been Atheistic? Apparently so, according to you.

If we'd needed the sciences God would've sent a book of science. We didn't need science, we needed a savior.



Asath said:


> Undeterred, the zealots do what zealots do – they attack – mindlessly, thoughtlessly, with no hesitation, and with no responsibility to actually be right. ‘ Belief,’ you might notice, is a very effective political strategy – it places itself above and apart from truth and facts, and labels any disagreement as ‘hating’ or ‘denying’ or ‘heresy.’  Thus the history of the world – no truth to stand on, persecution of those who seek the genuine truth, endless revisions when the real truth becomes undeniable, and the constant reliance on bullying and the fallacy of consensus gentium.  Rather like dealing with stubborn three-year-olds who stick out their bottom lip and stubbornly demand, “Why,” without any hope of actually understanding the answers..



 You just described, perfectly, the modern Scientific mood with respect to the rest of us.



Asath said:


> It can’t really be changed.  The Belief industry has grown far too wealthy and far too well entrenched to ever stop the brainwashing, and the overall populace is far too lazy and willfully uneducated to question their assumed ‘authority’ figures, and it is much easier for them to follow than to think.  Nothing much I can do about that, but to observe from afar, and feel sorry for them.



Agreed, there is a rather large and expansive industry attached to belief; however, it is the responsibility of the individual to rightly divide the word of truth. To repair all of belief to this is foolish.
Perhaps your illusions would be clear if you followed a little more closely. All are welcome to come.


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## 660griz

EverGreen1231 said:


> If we'd needed the sciences God would've sent a book of science. We didn't need science, we needed a savior.



And all you got was a book.


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## EverGreen1231

660griz said:


> And all you got was a book.



A book about that savior


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## Artfuldodger

EverGreen1231 said:


> A book about that savior



I'm still confused by your view of science. True it isn't as important as God or his Son. 
How do you view science as God's instructions for us to be stewards of the earth and ourselves and our fellow man?
Can we as men use science to learn and understand how to make the earth a better place to dwell even if it is a temporary dwelling place?
Our life as Christians  on the earth as physical beings  is temporary. Should we try to improve the quality of life not only for ourselves but to others in the form of help? One thing Jesus stressed is helping others. Some people mention not to do much here on earth as it's only temporary. Did Jesus also stress this belief or did he stress helping the sick and poor? Now what better way to help humans live a better life of less pain and suffering than to use science to overcome pain and suffering?


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## EverGreen1231

Artfuldodger said:


> I'm still confused by your view of science. True it isn't as important as God or his Son.
> 
> How do you view science as God's instructions for us to be stewards of the earth and ourselves and our fellow man?



I don't. Science is a man-made enterprise; invented by us to find out how to subdue and interact with a complex and frightening universe in a way that makes sense to the majority (i.e. no spirituality necessary) 



Artfuldodger said:


> Can we as men use science to learn and understand how to make the earth a better place to dwell even if it is a temporary dwelling place?



Sure. Is it the best way? I don't think so. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people...no 'science' necessary.



Artfuldodger said:


> Our life as Christians  on the earth as physical beings  is temporary. Should we try to improve the quality of life not only for ourselves but to others in the form of help? One thing Jesus stressed is helping others. Some people mention not to do much here on earth as it's only temporary. Did Jesus also stress this belief or did he stress helping the sick and poor? Now what better way to help humans live a better life of less pain and suffering than to use science to overcome pain and suffering?



Jesus' primary message was one of salvation for those whom need it; anything else was a tangential message; secondary to the primary.

Agreed science can work to improve lives, no doubt. I would also agree that, this being the case, it should be used and improved upon with the understanding that anything we might be able to do is only a temporary fix. I don't think the pursuit of science should consume someone's life. (see my signature)

What I find most troubling with is the fact that people are, foolishly, dismissing the idea of God (or any other spiritual thing) because they cannot 'prove' their existence by some centuries old five step process; as if that process has the ability to come into contact with all truth, in whatever form in may appear. These people would say something like, "We know how force works, therefore we don't need to invoke God to explain why someone dies when they fall from a high place." They will, conveniently, ignore the fact that we have no idea what force IS. These same people will ridicule me when I say this force was composed by an almighty creator: God. They'll start spouting, "God of the gaps," like some old, crusty parrot with Tourette syndrome as if they weren't just making a reciprocal argument.

I completely agree: the progression of science is real, and powerful and none can deny it; but it should not take precedence over spiritual things just because some people don't like the idea of exploring something they can't place their hands on.

Spirituality >> Scientific literacy


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## 660griz

EverGreen1231 said:


> I don't. _Religion_ is a man-made enterprise; invented by us to find out how to subdue and interact with a complex and frightening universe in a way that makes sense to the majority


Fixed it for you. 




> Agreed science can work to improve lives, no doubt. I would also agree that, this being the case, it should be used and improved upon with the understanding that anything we might be able to do is only a temporary fix. I don't think the pursuit of science should consume someone's life.


 What about the pursuit of knowledge?




> I completely agree: the progression of science is real, and powerful and none can deny it; *but it should not take precedence over spiritual things *just because some people don't like the idea of exploring something they can't place their hands on.



Thank goodness it did for lots of folks or numerous horrendous diseases would still be running rampant. 

When religious folks stop crying at funerals, take lightning rods off churches, and stop going to the doctor, get back to me. I hear the talk...A LOT...but no one walks the walk. Well, not many.


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## Artfuldodger

When I feel this force I do know that it is God the Creator. I do explain it with our terms such as wind, light, energy, etc. Our terms for God's energy.
I don't feel it is just me trying to explain God in scientific terms. It is God presenting himself in scientific terms. Man didn't invent the atom. He just discovered God's creation. 
I don't even see how a Christian can ignore that God made and uses science. Do you even allow your children to take science in school. Is so do you tell them it's not real? That it's just man's way of trying to explain God?
Why can't God use science, it's HIS creation. Why can't God be the "Great Architect?" 
Science doesn't take anything away from spirituality. God could have made us to be some type of a spiritual being that reproduced other spiritual beings in a world of no planets or universe. We could all just be existing as spirits as we will be after this temporary life on Earth. Spiritual beings with no need of science. Yet he didn't, he placed these spirits in human life forms on real planets in a real universe all made for a short temporary existence for God's purpose. It was God's plan to do this. This requires science to create and maintain. God works using his own rules or laws of science. 
I don't know why God did this. Create a whole universe for our spirits to temporarily dwell in just to destroy later. Again, his plan, not mine. Why didn't he just keep everything spiritual and he wouldn't have had a need for science? I'm not saying God couldn't have created and maintained a world without science, I'm saying he didn't. It was his choice.


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## WaltL1

660griz said:


> Fixed it for you.
> 
> 
> What about the pursuit of knowledge?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thank goodness it did for lots of folks or numerous horrendous diseases would still be running rampant.
> 
> When religious folks stop crying at funerals, take lightning rods off churches, and stop going to the doctor, get back to me. I hear the talk...A LOT...but no one walks the walk. Well, not many.


Bingo. Says the Christian inside their home, tapping on their keyboard, with the heat turned on, in their non animal skin clothes, eating their microwaved snack, looking at the clock, to determine how much time until they have to leave for their dentist appointment, in their car, that runs on gas, listening to Christian radio......................
Science does consume their lives, some just choose to ignore that.


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## atlashunter

660griz said:


> Fixed it for you.
> 
> 
> What about the pursuit of knowledge?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thank goodness it did for lots of folks or numerous horrendous diseases would still be running rampant.
> 
> When religious folks stop crying at funerals, take lightning rods off churches, and stop going to the doctor, get back to me. I hear the talk...A LOT...but no one walks the walk. Well, not many.



Was thinking the same thing. If they walked the walk they would still be purifying their homes from leprocy and mold with birds blood as their god instructed them to do.


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## JB0704

I'm not sure what part of science y'all believe is generally rejected by Christians aside from origins.  And that is completely irrelevant to a person's actions today.

I had a long talk with ny niece the other day who comes from a fundamentalist home about science.  Her focus was on evolution.....my comment to her was "If we believe God created everything, and science studies everything, isn't science just another way of understanding creation?"  I think it made sense to her a little.

My point is, a person doesn't have to completely reject scientific advancement in order to "walk the walk."  A Christians sees a lightbulb as a utilization of the resources God created.  Same as medicine, clothes, etc.


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## 660griz

They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.


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## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> My point is, a person doesn't have to completely reject scientific advancement in order to "walk the walk."  A Christians sees a lightbulb as a utilization of the resources God created.  Same as medicine, clothes, etc.



That is a very evolved way of thinking. Crucial to long term survival. However, I am pretty sure ignoring 'God's word', is important in that line of thinking.


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## ambush80

Artfuldodger said:


> When I feel this force I do know that it is God the Creator. I do explain it with our terms such as wind, light, energy, etc. Our terms for God's energy.
> I don't feel it is just me trying to explain God in scientific terms. It is God presenting himself in scientific terms. Man didn't invent the atom. He just discovered God's creation.
> I don't even see how a Christian can ignore that God made and uses science. Do you even allow your children to take science in school. Is so do you tell them it's not real? That it's just man's way of trying to explain God?
> Why can't God use science, it's HIS creation. Why can't God be the "Great Architect?"
> Science doesn't take anything away from spirituality. God could have made us to be some type of a spiritual being that reproduced other spiritual beings in a world of no planets or universe. We could all just be existing as spirits as we will be after this temporary life on Earth. Spiritual beings with no need of science. Yet he didn't, he placed these spirits in human life forms on real planets in a real universe all made for a short temporary existence for God's purpose. It was God's plan to do this. This requires science to create and maintain. God works using his own rules or laws of science.
> I don't know why God did this. Create a whole universe for our spirits to temporarily dwell in just to destroy later. Again, his plan, not mine. Why didn't he just keep everything spiritual and he wouldn't have had a need for science? I'm not saying God couldn't have created and maintained a world without science, I'm saying he didn't. It was his choice.



Can you describe it and how do you know?


----------



## ambush80

660griz said:


> That is a very evolved way of thinking. Crucial to long term survival. However, I am pretty sure ignoring 'God's word', is important in that line of thinking.



I think so too.  If followed to the letter at some point one will have to abandon critical thinking.  No bueno.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> However, I am pretty sure ignoring 'God's word', is important in that line of thinking.



What am I ignoring?  

In the scripture you quoted above, who is "they?" (I don't know as I type this as I have not googled the verse).


----------



## hobbs27

JB0704 said:


> What am I ignoring?
> 
> In the scripture you quoted above, who is "they?" (I don't know as I type this as I have not googled the verse).



Mark 16... {They} were the Apostles and the ones that believed the Gospel as preached by the Apostles. 
 The acts of handling snakes ; drinking poisons; and healing the sick were [signs], those signs are fulfilled and were fulfilled in the first century as evidenced in the Acts.


----------



## WaltL1

JB0704 said:


> I'm not sure what part of science y'all believe is generally rejected by Christians aside from origins.  And that is completely irrelevant to a person's actions today.
> 
> I had a long talk with ny niece the other day who comes from a fundamentalist home about science.  Her focus was on evolution.....my comment to her was "If we believe God created everything, and science studies everything, isn't science just another way of understanding creation?"  I think it made sense to her a little.
> 
> My point is, a person doesn't have to completely reject scientific advancement in order to "walk the walk."  A Christians sees a lightbulb as a utilization of the resources God created.  Same as medicine, clothes, etc.


I'm not sure JB. Maybe reject science isn't accurate, maybe put it on the back burner when it conflicts with certain beliefs is more accurate. Donkeys cant talk, staffs cant turn into snakes, we know how rainbows happen, people cant turn in to a pillar of salt and on and on.
Science will tell you why or why not. 
To believe them anyway you have to either reject science or put those things under the category of "miracle" etc which is just another way of getting around the science.
For example -


> .....my comment to her was "If we believe God created everything, and science studies everything, isn't science just another way of understanding creation?" I think it made sense to her a little.


If she runs with this and starts noticing that science doesn't back up the Bible in lots of places and asks you questions about it, your choices are going to be essentially "believe science or believe the Bible".


----------



## Israel

Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins...Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. 

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 

For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.

In the saying He is Lord is the reality of the resurrection affirmed. Our faith and hope begins and ends at this point alone...not only his wise words, not kind gestures nor simply great sacrifice. The raising of Jesus the Christ from death is the signal event around which all of this creation is ordered, and yet groans in travail awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God.

Yes, what is believed is foolish to those who do not.


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> But now Christ has been raised from the dead,



C'mon, man.  You can't just say that.




Israel said:


> In the saying He is Lord is the reality of the resurrection affirmed.



You're just saying  "It's true because I said so."

Again, C'mon, man.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins...Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
> 
> But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.
> 
> For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.
> 
> In the saying He is Lord is the reality of the resurrection affirmed. Our faith and hope begins and ends at this point alone...not only his wise words, not kind gestures nor simply great sacrifice. The raising of Jesus the Christ from death is the signal event around which all of this creation is ordered, and yet groans in travail awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God.
> 
> Yes, what is believed is foolish to those who do not.



More soap box preaching.
Nothing substantial is added to the conversation with posts like this.


----------



## ambush80

bullethead said:


> More soap box preaching.
> Nothing substantial is added to the conversation with posts like this.



I wish he would say just one thing apologetic.  I'm so desperate I'll even take personal testimony at this point.


----------



## bullethead

ambush80 said:


> I wish he would say just one thing apologetic.  I'm so desperate I'll even take personal testimony at this point.



Good luck


----------



## Jeff Phillips

bigbuckhunter1 said:


> Seriously why? Is it a "go with the flow" type thing? Or do they not know the true meaning of Christmas?



Because they live in a Christian society and Christian holidays are the norm. This country was founded by Christians and is a Christian country.

They are free to celebrate Kwanza too.


----------



## jmharris23

WaltL1 said:


> I'm not sure JB. Maybe reject science isn't accurate, maybe put it on the back burner when it conflicts with certain beliefs is more accurate. Donkeys cant talk, staffs cant turn into snakes, we know how rainbows happen, people cant turn in to a pillar of salt and on and on.
> Science will tell you why or why not.
> To believe them anyway you have to either reject science or put those things under the category of "miracle" etc which is just another way of getting around the science.
> For example -
> 
> If she runs with this and starts noticing that science doesn't back up the Bible in lots of places and asks you questions about it, your choices are going to be essentially "believe science or believe the Bible".




I've never had an issue with science, but I've also never taken issues with the miraculous. 

I agree that donkeys don't talk, etc. and I agree that science will back that up, but I'm not convinced that it could never happen, of course that's because I believe in the bible


----------



## bullethead

Jeff Phillips said:


> Because they live in a Christian society and Christian holidays are the norm. This country was founded by Christians and is a Christian country.
> 
> They are free to celebrate Kwanza too.


Don't let the facts get in the way.
Good stuff, thanks.


----------



## Artfuldodger

jmharris23 said:


> I've never had an issue with science, but I've also never taken issues with the miraculous.
> 
> I agree that donkeys don't talk, etc. and I agree that science will back that up, but I'm not convinced that it could never happen, of course that's because I believe in the bible



If creation of the earth and man is possible without science as many believe then it's not that far-fetched that God could make a virgin pregnant by giving her egg the DNA it needed to be human.
This child would not have to be God but the son of God.
Dwelling on the earth as a human with the "fullness of the Godhead." Completely different from his father or mother. Doing the will of his Father by the indwelling of his Father's spirit. Having the body and soul of a man but the spirit of his Father. Saying "not my will but thy will be done."


----------



## Israel

And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.' And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'"

If one neither hears nor sees the righteousness of God revealed through Moses and the prophets, what need of they of grace, mercy and all truth through Jesus the Messiah?

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.


----------



## WaltL1

> Originally Posted by Jeff Phillips View Post
> Because they live in a Christian society and Christian holidays are the norm. This country was founded by Christians and is a Christian country.





bullethead said:


> Don't let the facts get in the way.
> Good stuff, thanks.



If you close your eyes real tight and click your heels while repeating it 10 times it will be true.


----------



## WaltL1

jmharris23 said:


> I've never had an issue with science, but I've also never taken issues with the miraculous.
> 
> I agree that donkeys don't talk, etc. and I agree that science will back that up, but I'm not convinced that it could never happen, of course that's because I believe in the bible


I think we just said the same thing


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.' And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'"
> 
> If one neither hears nor sees the righteousness of God revealed through Moses and the prophets, what need of they of grace, mercy and all truth through Jesus the Messiah?
> 
> On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
> 
> And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
> 
> But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.



Blatant disregard for the intent of this forum.
Pitiful


----------



## bullethead

WaltL1 said:


> If you close your eyes real tight and click your heels while repeating it 10 times it will be true.



Christopher Christianson from Christtown didn't bother to read the rest of the thread huh?


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Mark 16... {They} were the Apostles and the ones that believed the Gospel as preached by the Apostles.
> The acts of handling snakes ; drinking poisons; and healing the sick were [signs], those signs are fulfilled and were fulfilled in the first century as evidenced in the Acts.



Mark 16:17-18 is saying that if you are faithfully serving God in the spread of the gospel, *He can protect you from anything that may cross your path*.

However, there are Christians that disagree with this notion. Shocker, right?
http://holiness-snake-handlers.webs.com/


----------



## jmharris23

WaltL1 said:


> I think we just said the same thing



Yeah I think we did. I guess for some science is the highest power and for others there is something higher. 

For what it's worth, I realize the ridiculousness of it when viewed through the lens of human knowledge and scientific fact. 

That just doesn't change my belief that the God of the bible is my creator and holds ultimate sovereignty over all things. 

Perhaps I'm weak minded or I just need a crutch to get through life? Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to see the truth? 

Whatever the case the message of the bible about the God who created all and the son who can save all resonates in my heart and I believe it to be true.

I can live with that.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Mark 16:17-18 is saying that if you are faithfully serving God in the spread of the gospel, *He can protect you from anything that may cross your path*.
> 
> However, there are Christians that disagree with this notion. Shocker, right?
> http://holiness-snake-handlers.webs.com/



My disagreement comes in the context. It was not said to me but the disciples of Christ and it was for a sign. These things actually took place as Mark 16:20 confirms that they went and preached every where and confirmed the word with signs.

Speaking in tongues, surviving serpent bites as Paul did,healing the sick, was all signs for the early church  before the scriptures of the new testament were recorded.

 & yes I know about the nuts that believe Mark 16 is literally written to them.


----------



## ambush80

jmharris23 said:


> Yeah I think we did. I guess for some science is the highest power and for others there is something higher.
> 
> For what it's worth, I realize the ridiculousness of it when viewed through the lens of human knowledge and scientific fact.
> 
> That just doesn't change my belief that the God of the bible is my creator and holds ultimate sovereignty over all things.
> 
> Perhaps I'm weak minded or I just need a crutch to get through life? Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to see the truth?
> 
> Whatever the case the message of the bible about the God who created all and the son who can save all resonates in my heart and I believe it to be true.
> 
> I can live with that.



I don't think that's true at all.  I think that you could live a life driven by reason but it's nice to live in that comfort zone that most of us were brought up in.  

Science isn't a "power".  It's a way of understanding things; a way of making things better if used for good.  There's so much we don't know.  How fun,eh?  

Remember being a kid and pulling something apart just to see how it worked?  You just had to know.  That impulse remains.  Religion numbs it.  I don't know why Christians don't try to pull the idea of god apart to see how it works.  It would seem that something so important would demand that kind of rigorous investigation.

I love my wife and kids.  That there are people who are trying to understand how love works, what part of the brain is stimulated when in love and how can it be reproduced doesn't diminish what I feel.  Just because I know how alcohol works  doesn't mean it doesn't get me drunk.  In fact, the more I know about alcohol and it's effects the more responsible I can be with it.  Can you imagine how in awe people must have been when they discovered alcohol?  They must have held its powers in quite some regard. 

Perhaps it's the "sacredness" of a thing.  Maybe some people don't want to lose that sense of mystery about a thing.  For the life of me I can't see why.

In the _Beyond Belief_ conference I'm watching, someone brought up the possibility that we are hardwired to believe in god and that agnostics and atheist may in fact be lacking that gene.  I hope they figure it out.


----------



## WaltL1

jmharris23 said:


> Yeah I think we did. I guess for some science is the highest power and for others there is something higher.
> 
> For what it's worth, I realize the ridiculousness of it when viewed through the lens of human knowledge and scientific fact.
> 
> That just doesn't change my belief that the God of the bible is my creator and holds ultimate sovereignty over all things.
> 
> Perhaps I'm weak minded or I just need a crutch to get through life? Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to see the truth?
> 
> Whatever the case the message of the bible about the God who created all and the son who can save all resonates in my heart and I believe it to be true.
> 
> I can live with that.





> I guess for some science is the highest power and for others there is something higher.


I personally don't view science as a "power" as though it were a thing onto itself. Without scientists, science is just a word that does nothing.


> For what it's worth, I realize the ridiculousness of it when viewed through the lens of human knowledge and scientific fact.


Some would use "ridiculous". I just believe the desire for it all to be true outweighs human knowledge and scientific fact. Is that ridiculous? faithful? indoctrinated?
wishful? stupid? smart?........ lots of words could fit. I doubt we will find which words were the right ones in this lifetime.


> Perhaps I'm weak minded or I just need a crutch to get through life? Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to see the truth?


Perhaps. Perhaps not. I don't think being religious on its own determines if those things are true or not.


> Whatever the case the message of the bible about the God who created all and the son who can save all resonates in my heart and I believe it to be true.


And that's the difference between religion and science. And probably the main difference between A/A/A.


> I can live with that


That's really all that matters.


----------



## JB0704

hobbs27 said:


> Mark 16... {They} were the Apostles and the ones that believed the Gospel as preached by the Apostles.
> The acts of handling snakes ; drinking poisons; and healing the sick were [signs], those signs are fulfilled and were fulfilled in the first century as evidenced in the Acts.



Thanks Hobbs.  That is kind-a what I figured the verse was saying.


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> Remember being a kid and pulling something apart just to see how it worked?  You just had to know.  That impulse remains.  Religion numbs it.  I don't know why Christians don't try to pull the idea of god apart to see how it works.  It would seem that something so important would demand that kind of rigorous investigation.



Why do you think they don't?  A different conclusion than your own does not indicate a lack of investigation.



ambush80 said:


> In the _Beyond Belief_ conference I'm watching, someone brought up the possibility that we are hardwired to believe in god and that agnostics and atheist may in fact be lacking that gene.  I hope they figure it out.



Why?

Also, a disposition to believe lines up with a Christian worldview as well, "created in his image," sorta thing.  I doubt it's genetic.


----------



## ambush80

JB0704 said:


> Why do you think they don't?  A different conclusion than your own does not indicate a lack of investigation.



You've been upstairs.  How many times does some poor sod go in there asking an honest, heartfelt question and after 4 or 5 pages is told to "Leave it at the Foot of the Cross" or "Just trust Jesus." or "You can't understand it with your natural mind."

They're blatantly encouraging lack of investigation.  As thoughtful and intelligent a person as you are, at some point you do it too.  It's called faith.



JB0704 said:


> Why?
> 
> Also, a disposition to believe lines up with a Christian worldview as well, "created in his image," sorta thing.  I doubt it's genetic.



Why?  Because they can and should; for the noble advancement of knowledge.  "Why build an automobile?  My horse and buggy does just fine."

Why wouldn't or couldn't it be genetic?  I'm sensing that you're reluctant to give religiosity a natural explanation.  Like love or drunkenness, just cause you understand it doesn't diminish it's affect on you.


----------



## ambush80

You know what?  We are all looking for god.  Even Richard Dawkins.  That's why I, he, we spend so much time on this stuff. Not looking in a longing way but in a proper, inquisitive way.

I see people who I respect and admire that believe and I just have to keep looking.  Maybe they did something that I haven't tried yet.  Maybe one day I'll take that wise advice from the Bible and "shake the dust off" and give up.


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> Blatant disregard for the intent of this forum.
> Pitiful



Is your sense of "rightness/righteousness" offended?


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> Thanks Hobbs.  That is kind-a what I figured the verse was saying.



Sorry. My point was around God's healing not specific to the serpent handling. Like I said, if you truly believe, you would not go to a doctor. 

So, I will try again.

Exodus 23:25 And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the middle of you.

Psalms 103:3 Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases;

Psalms 107:20 He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Jeremiah 30:17 For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, said the LORD; because they called you an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeks after.

Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

Matthew 9:12 But when Jesus heard that, he said to them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.

Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

James 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live to righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> You've been upstairs.  How many times does some poor sod go in there asking an honest, heartfelt question and after 4 or 5 pages is told to "Leave it at the Foot of the Cross" or "Just trust Jesus." or "You can't understand it with your natural mind."
> 
> They're blatantly encouraging lack of investigation.  As thoughtful and intelligent a person as you are, at some point you do it too.  It's called faith.
> 
> 
> 
> Why?  Because they can and should; for the noble advancement of knowledge.  "Why build an automobile?  My horse and buggy does just fine."
> 
> Why wouldn't or couldn't it be genetic?  I'm sensing that you're reluctant to give religiosity a natural explanation.  Like love or drunkenness, just cause you understand it doesn't diminish it's affect on you.






> You know what? We are all looking for god. Even Richard Dawkins. That's why I, he, we spend so much time on this stuff. Not looking in a longing way but in a proper, inquisitive way.
> Today 09:32 AM




Which is it? Heartfelt...or just inquisitive? Like kids playing with a an old refrigerator in a field?


----------



## 660griz

Israel said:


> Which is it? Heartfelt...or just inquisitive? Like kids playing with a an old refrigerator in a field?



From my perspective, it is inquisitive. You cannot use a term like 'heartfelt', for something you do not yet know about. Make sense?


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Which is it? Heartfelt...or just inquisitive? Like kids playing with a an old refrigerator in a field?




Those poor guys that go in there asking questions are aching.  I use that word "heartfelt" because I know how it feels.  I also know it doesn't come from your heart.

And yes, kids should learn about how refrigerators work, in a safe way.


----------



## ambush80

660griz said:


> From my perspective, it is inquisitive. You cannot use a term like 'heartfelt', for something you do not yet know about. Make sense?



It's heartfelt because they want to believe in something that the evidence points to isn't true.  It's more like heartache.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Sorry. My point was around God's healing not specific to the serpent handling. Like I said, if you truly believe, you would not go to a doctor.
> 
> So, I will try again.
> 
> .



Mark 16 also involved  healing. None of these things are relevant to us today. The gifts have ceased. That's not to say prayer doesn't work or that Jesus is no longer in the healing business. It's that those gifts given to man back then are no longer given to man. The kingdom is built on the recorded word of God preached.


----------



## 660griz

On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642 ---Neil deGrasse Tyson


----------



## ambush80

660griz said:


> On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642 ---Neil deGrasse Tyson



Gotta love some Tyson.  I watch his oratory style and wonder how he might have done as a preacher.  I guess he is one, kind of.


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> They're blatantly encouraging lack of investigation.  As thoughtful and intelligent a person as you are, at some point you do it too.  It's called faith.



Some do, yes.  Generally because doubt begins where answers end.  Not for all of us, though.  I don't think there is any reason to stop looking for answers.  I believe in God.  That does not mean I am afraid of scientific discovery.  It's all in how we view the world around us.  I see creation.  You see nature.  Science explains what we see, and we see the explanation in context of our worldview.



ambush80 said:


> Why?  Because they can and should; for the noble advancement of knowledge.  "Why build an automobile?  My horse and buggy does just fine."



Ok.  I thought you were saying you hope they discover belief is genetic, rather than hope they investigate it......kind-a like you are looking for a desired outcome.



ambush80 said:


> Why wouldn't or couldn't it be genetic?  I'm sensing that you're reluctant to give religiosity a natural explanation.  Like love or drunkenness, just cause you understand it doesn't diminish it's affect on you.



The reason I doubt it is genetic is because folks swing in and out of belief easily.  It's not that I hope one way or the other.  But, I do know that folks with certain genetic dispositions have a very difficult time changing that unless they medicate themselves heavily, and even then they haven't changed their genetic makeup, only how they act on it.  I don't think any skeptics medicate themselves to eliminate the "belief gene."

Aside from that, it could be.  I am not sure which makes a stronger case for God, but, it would put a natural twist on the "made in his image" perspective.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Mark 16 also involved  healing.


 Yep. That is what I stated.


> None of these things are relevant to us today.


 That, I can agree with. 


> The gifts have ceased.


 Really? 


> That's not to say prayer doesn't work or that Jesus is no longer in the healing business. It's that those gifts given to man back then are no longer given to man.


 This makes no sense. Either Jesus is in the healing business or he isn't. He is in complete control of your life or he isn't. If you are a true Christian, and you get a terminal illness that could be cured by modern medicine, why would you want to be cured when you are going to a MUCH better place? 
Ever heard the saying, "everyone wants to go to heaven but, no one wants to die to get there." 
I believe most, if not all, Christians have at least a little doubt. That is the only explanation for fighting death(God's will) and wanting to prolong the occupation of this life which they constantly lament how it is going to he!!.


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> I see people who I respect and admire that believe and I just have to keep looking.  Maybe they did something that I haven't tried yet.  Maybe one day I'll take that wise advice from the Bible and "shake the dust off" and give up.



I don't think they have tried anything you haven't.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Is your sense of "rightness/righteousness" offended?



Not at all. 
I respect the rules of the forums a few floors up and expect the same consideration here.
If I wanted Bible verses, sermons, preaching and proselytization I would not spend my time here.
I know you are not an atheist or an agnostic and nothing of what you post in here is apologetic.
You are in the wrong place for baseless claims and bible verses.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> This makes no sense. Either Jesus is in the healing business or he isn't. He is in complete control of your life or he isn't. If you are a true Christian, and you get a terminal illness that could be cured by modern medicine, why would you want to be cured when you are going to a MUCH better place?
> Ever heard the saying, "everyone wants to go to heaven but, no one wants to die to get there."
> I believe most, if not all, Christians have at least a little doubt. That is the only explanation for fighting death(God's will) and wanting to prolong the occupation of this life which they constantly lament how it is going to he!!.



If I were terminally ill and drs healed me, it was God's will. If I died after prayer for healing that prayer was answered, because I would be healed of the sickness and be in the presence of the Lord.

This flesh wants to hang on to what it knows. I personally want to stay around to help my children and grandchildren, but my soul has a yearning to go home as it is just a foreigner in a foreign land. 

My original point to all this though, is the speaking of tongues, healing the sick, etc, etc was signs in the first century to help in spreading the Gospel. Scriptures and the Gospel going out to the world, has replaced this need, therefore those things have ceased.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> If I were terminally ill and drs healed me, it was God's will. If I died after prayer for healing that prayer was answered, because I would be healed of the sickness and be in the presence of the Lord.



So why go to the doctor at all? If it's all God's will/doing, why bother with anything else?


----------



## ambush80

JB0704 said:


> I don't think they have tried anything you haven't.



I don't think so either.  What's the lesson?


----------



## 660griz

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> So why go to the doctor at all? If it's all God's will/doing, why bother with anything else?



The only explanation I can come up with is because they don't REALLY believe any of it. They don't have full faith in God, they have just learned to manipulate the bible to fit what they want to do. If they can do that, perhaps God will forgive them once they really die and then they can go to heaven.  I hear a lot of prayers that seem to be trying to circumvent God's will. Like he doesn't know what he is doing.
It all boils down to believe in God...'Just in case'.


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> I don't think so either.  What's the lesson?



Perspective changes everything.


----------



## hobbs27

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> So why go to the doctor at all? If it's all God's will/doing, why bother with anything else?



To get a note for work.  

Seriously though. I recognize God has given us knowledge in medicine. I would be a fool to not go to the Dr if I were ill. He's provided a place for us when we are sick.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> To get a note for work.
> 
> Seriously though. I recognize God has given us knowledge in medicine. I would be a fool to not go to the Dr if I were ill. He's provided a place for us when we are sick.



And yet the doctor/meds got no credit in your earlier post. It seems to me that if you getting better were God's will then that could be, and would be, achieved without the copay and the meds. 

I don't mean to sound callous, but it seems like hedging your bets to go get treatment and then thank God for a successful cure.


----------



## hobbs27

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> And yet the doctor/meds got no credit in your earlier post. It seems to me that if you getting better were God's will then that could be, and would be, achieved without the copay and the meds.
> 
> I don't mean to sound callous, but it seems like hedging your bets to go get treatment and then thank God for a successful cure.



I suppose you never heard of the man standing on the roof of his house turning down help because he said he had prayed and God was going to save him from the flood?

 When he was finally swept away and drowned in the flood he asked God, " why didn't you save me, I prayed for you to save me?" God answered back and said, " I sent you a rescue team, then a boat, and finally a helicopter and you turned them all away!" 

 There's times God reveals Himself to us that we know could only be God doing it, and there's other times that we are just going about our way in life. If God gave us knowledge to cure certain sicknesses, and a means to do it in why shouldn't we take advantage of them?


----------



## ambush80

hobbs27 said:


> If I were terminally ill and drs healed me, it was God's will. If I died after prayer for healing that prayer was answered, because I would be healed of the sickness and be in the presence of the Lord.
> 
> This flesh wants to hang on to what it knows. I personally want to stay around to help my children and grandchildren, but my soul has a yearning to go home as it is just a foreigner in a foreign land.
> 
> My original point to all this though, is the speaking of tongues, healing the sick, etc, etc was signs in the first century to help in spreading the Gospel. Scriptures and the Gospel going out to the world, has replaced this need, therefore those things have ceased.




That's sad.  Just my opinion.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> God answered back and said, " I sent you a rescue team, then a boat, and finally a helicopter and you turned them all away!"



Because an all powerful God just can't save someone without the help of man. Awesome and...convenient.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> I suppose you never heard of the man standing on the roof of his house turning down help because he said he had prayed and God was going to save him from the flood?
> 
> When he was finally swept away and drowned in the flood he asked God, " why didn't you save me, I prayed for you to save me?" God answered back and said, " I sent you a rescue team, then a boat, and finally a helicopter and you turned them all away!"
> 
> There's times God reveals Himself to us that we know could only be God doing it, and there's other times that we are just going about our way in life. If God gave us knowledge to cure certain sicknesses, and a means to do it in why shouldn't we take advantage of them?



I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm actually saying you should thank the doctor first, then God for working through him if that's your cup of tea. Perhaps it was nitpicky of me to notice, but in the first post I commented on you didn't mention the doctor except tangentially as being the conduit for God. Seems to me that would preclude the doc's free will, which he should, IMO, get credit for exercising in both seeking the training and exercising it to save/cure you.


----------



## ambush80

JB0704 said:


> Perspective changes everything.



Elaborate?


----------



## ambush80

hobbs27 said:


> I suppose you never heard of the man standing on the roof of his house turning down help because he said he had prayed and God was going to save him from the flood?
> 
> When he was finally swept away and drowned in the flood he asked God, " why didn't you save me, I prayed for you to save me?" God answered back and said, " I sent you a rescue team, then a boat, and finally a helicopter and you turned them all away!"
> 
> There's times God reveals Himself to us that we know could only be God doing it, and there's other times that we are just going about our way in life. If God gave us knowledge to cure certain sicknesses, and a means to do it in why shouldn't we take advantage of them?



Example please.


----------



## 660griz

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Perhaps it was nitpicky of me to notice, but in the first post I commented on you didn't mention the doctor except tangentially as being the conduit for God.



Ebola Patient Dr. Kent Brantly Says 'God Saved My Life'
"God saved my life — a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers. "

Meanwhile, 1000s die from Ebola...God hated them.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

660griz said:


> Ebola Patient Dr. Kent Brantly Says 'God Saved My Life'
> "God saved my life — a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers. "
> 
> Meanwhile, 1000s die from Ebola...God hated them.



Sorry, I'm agnostic. I won't presume to put words, of any variety, into the mouth of the deity that might, or might not, exist. 

I do feel that people who say things like that are seriously disrespecting those professionals that did save them. 

You might _believe_ that God worked through them to save you, but the one thing you can rest assured of is that they, the medical professionals, did, in fact, work on you and without them doing so God would have had to resort to a more supernatural conduit than Z-Mapp, or other treatment options.


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> Elaborate?



Two folks look at one picture and see two different things, think you put a funny pic demonstrating this out there once.

The people who have tried everything you have tried, and come to a different conclusion just see things differently.  It's their perspective.

I see life as evidence of God, I see no way around that conclusion without doing all kinds of hypothesizing'.  It seems very obvious to me.  It is obviously not the same to you.  Perspective.


----------



## hobbs27

ambush80 said:


> Example please.



Theres been many times in my life, most are too personal to share here. One that comes to mind though is an accident I was in. Lost total control of my vehicle, headed straight for a tree line with two of my daughters in the car. I cried out for Gods help and the car corrected itself and came to a stop in the mud a few feet from some big trees.
 A vehicle coming from the opposite direction stopped and asked if we were ok, I looked around and said yes, but probably stuck in the mud....but I wasn't, the car pulled out just fine. May not seem like a miracle when reading this but being in the car and just waiting to hear the metal and glass crushing...I know, and His presence was definately felt.


----------



## ambush80

660griz said:


> Ebola Patient Dr. Kent Brantly Says 'God Saved My Life'
> "God saved my life — a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers. "
> 
> Meanwhile, 1000s die from Ebola...God hated them.



Praise be to god.  No matter what.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Ebola Patient Dr. Kent Brantly Says 'God Saved My Life'
> "God saved my life — a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers. "
> 
> Meanwhile, 1000s die from Ebola...God hated them.



Isnt this guy a Dr. that treats Ebola? Wouldn't he know who cured him?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> Isnt this guy a Dr. that treats Ebola? Wouldn't he know who cured him?



Know, or "know"?


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> To get a note for work.
> 
> Seriously though. I recognize God has given us knowledge in medicine. I would be a fool to not go to the Dr if I were ill. He's provided a place for us when we are sick.


So did God provide abortion clinics? Hooters? Cathouses? Walmart? They are all places people go who have a need.
Is there a list somewhere of God approved goods and services?
Or are you just taking something that's "good" and assigning God to it?


----------



## hobbs27

WaltL1 said:


> So did God provide abortion clinics? Hooters? Cathouses? Walmart? They are all places people go who have a need.
> Is there a list somewhere of God approved goods and services?
> Or are you just taking something that's "good" and assigning God to it?




You've been to Hooters and deny there's a Creator that loves us?


----------



## ambush80

WaltL1 said:


> So did God provide abortion clinics? Hooters? Cathouses? Walmart? They are all places people go who have a need.
> Is there a list somewhere of God approved goods and services?
> Or are you just taking something that's "good" and assigning God to it?



All that stuff is of the Debbil.  By way of Adam and our sin nature.


----------



## JB0704

hobbs27 said:


> You've been to Hooters and deny there's a Creator that loves us?


----------



## ambush80

hobbs27 said:


> You've been to Hooters and deny there's a Creator that loves us?



If he loved us he would make those wings better.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

ambush80 said:


> If he loved us he would make those wings better.



And serve beer that isn't watered down.


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> You've been to Hooters and deny there's a Creator that loves us?


Actually I would say there is a creator who loves cosmetic surgeons. Maybe because they both create.

But my questions still stand.


----------



## hobbs27

WaltL1 said:


> Actually I would say there is a creator who loves cosmetic surgeons. Maybe because they both create.
> 
> But my questions still stand.



I don't think your question is relevant unless you go to those places for healing.


----------



## JB0704

I like hooters wings


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> I don't think your question is relevant unless you go to those places for healing.


Oh come on.
Now you are going to have to provide us with Gods definition of healing.
Maybe some guy was lonely and went to Hooter's to heal is loneliness?
Went to Walmart for some cough medicine to heal his cough?
Went to a fortune teller to heal his fears about his future?
If you are going to choose a hospital because you go there to heal (or die) you are going to have to include everywhere else that provides the same service.


----------



## WaltL1

JB0704 said:


> I like hooters wings


Me too. Probably my favorites. And Im not a fan of silicone so I really do go for the wings.


----------



## jmharris23

660griz said:


> Sorry. My point was around God's healing not specific to the serpent handling. Like I said, if you truly believe, you would not go to a doctor.
> 
> So, I will try again.
> 
> Exodus 23:25 And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the middle of you.
> 
> Psalms 103:3 Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases;
> 
> Psalms 107:20 He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
> 
> Jeremiah 30:17 For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, said the LORD; because they called you an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeks after.
> 
> Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
> 
> Matthew 9:12 But when Jesus heard that, he said to them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
> 
> Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.
> 
> Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
> 
> Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
> 
> James 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
> 
> James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
> 
> 1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live to righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.




Is it possible that these verses have a different intention/meaning for the believer in 2014 than they did to the original audience in 100? 

Obviously medical care and ability has improved a little in the last 2000 years. What should the NT writers have encouraged their original audience to do? 

Head to the ER or closest walk-in clinic? Prayer or intervention from The Lord  was the only option/hope they had.


----------



## rmp

jmharris23 said:


> Prayer or intervention from The Lord  was the only option/hope they had.




I think there were physicians at the time. It's even referenced in Matthew 9:12 (NIV)
12. On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Granted, "he" was performing miracles at the time, but apparently there were physicians practicing medicine.


----------



## bullethead

jmharris23 said:


> Is it possible that these verses have a different intention/meaning for the believer in 2014 than they did to the original audience in 100?
> 
> Obviously medical care and ability has improved a little in the last 2000 years. What should the NT writers have encouraged their original audience to do?
> 
> Head to the ER or closest walk-in clinic? Prayer or intervention from The Lord  was the only option/hope they had.



I think most everything has changed since 100AD.
Is it the writers fault the intent and meaning has changed? 
Or
Wouldn't a book..a guide book for all of mankind that is supposed to come from an all knowing being. ..transcend time? Shouldn't it fit all who read it no matter the year? Otherwise it is exactly what it is...a collection of ancient stories by ancient people meant for ancient times.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> I think most everything has changed since 100AD.
> Is it the writers fault the intent and meaning has changed?
> Or
> Wouldn't a book..a guide book for all of mankind that is supposed to come from an all knowing being. ..transcend time? Shouldn't it fit all who read it no matter the year? Otherwise it is exactly what it is...a collection of ancient stories by ancient people meant for ancient times.



 The bible is written for us but not to us. It is indeed written in ancient times with ancient languages and ancient cultures. 
 Man hasnt changed though and can get a basic understanding of the book, but when applying the facts you stated above and considering those things ...one can get really deep in the book and understand things others will say, " arent meant to be understood" .


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> The bible is written for us but not to us. It is indeed written in ancient times with ancient languages and ancient cultures.
> Man hasnt changed though and can get a basic understanding of the book, but when applying the facts you stated above and considering those things ...one can get really deep in the book and understand things others will say, " arent meant to be understood" .



We are overdue for an update.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> We are overdue for an update.



We get updates everyday, with people professing Christ as their Lord and Savior!


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> We get updates everyday, with people professing Christ as their Lord and Savior!



People profess anything and everything. All are equal considering the sources.


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> We get updates everyday, with people professing Christ as their Lord and Savior!


Surely you would agree that people leaving the Church, Christianity, religion are updates too?


----------



## hobbs27

WaltL1 said:


> Surely you would agree that people leaving the Church, Christianity, religion are updates too?



Well leaving the church & religion yes. Few people leave their faith though. There's the 18 to 35 year old group that's always going to be less than active in their faith, but most come back....just from my observations, I don't have documented data on this.

 My faith has grown stronger since I left my previous denomination, and religious organization.


----------



## jmharris23

rmp said:


> I think there were physicians at the time. It's even referenced in Matthew 9:12 (NIV)
> 12. On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
> 
> Granted, "he" was performing miracles at the time, but apparently there were physicians practicing medicine.



Sure there were physicians, but let's honest, medical care has greatly improved in the last 2000 years


----------



## jmharris23

bullethead said:


> I think most everything has changed since 100AD.
> Is it the writers fault the intent and meaning has changed?
> Or
> Wouldn't a book..a guide book for all of mankind that is supposed to come from an all knowing being. ..transcend time? Shouldn't it fit all who read it no matter the year? Otherwise it is exactly what it is...a collection of ancient stories by ancient people meant for ancient times.



I believe the book does transcend time, but in order to understand how it applies to you, you must understand how it applied to the original audience. To that degree it is a record of ancient events, recorded by ancient people meant for all time.


----------



## bullethead

jmharris23 said:


> I believe the book does transcend time, but in order to understand how it applies to you, you must understand how it applied to the original audience. To that degree it is a record of ancient events, recorded by ancient people meant for all time.


Who here will admit to understanding how it applied to the original audience then and how it applies to themselves now?
If I have read it once I have read it a hundred times in here and five hundred more in the forums above all the misunderstandings and individual bickering among BELIEVERS on Biblical issues and meanings.
No one understands those writings. All anyone has done or can do is interpret it in ways that make sense to their own mind.


----------



## jmharris23

bullethead said:


> Who here will admit to understanding how it applied to the original audience then and how it applies to themselves now?
> If I have read it once I have read it a hundred times in here and five hundred more in the forums above all the misunderstandings and individual bickering among BELIEVERS on Biblical issues and meanings.
> No one understands those writings. All anyone has done or can do is interpret it in ways that make sense to their own mind.



I'm pretty sure I understand it. I'm not saying that there aren't fuzzy spots but I clearly understand the message of it in its totality and for the the most part I understand it in its individual parts. 

Heck, I've even got a master's degree to prove it


----------



## rmp

jmharris23 said:


> Sure there were physicians, but let's honest, medical care has greatly improved in the last 2000 years



Absolutely agree which shows prayer and anointing with oil is pretty much ineffective.  Exactly why there are no faith healers in hospitals.  If what was cited in psalms and the NT actually produced positive results (healing), modern medicine would have never got off the ground.


----------



## WaltL1

jmharris23 said:


> I'm pretty sure I understand it. I'm not saying that there aren't fuzzy spots but I clearly understand the message of it in its totality and for the the most part I understand it in its individual parts.
> 
> Heck, I've even got a master's degree to prove it





> I'm pretty sure I understand it.


As does everybody think regardless of all the differing opinions and understandings. There are over 3000 flavors of Christianity. All who think they are pretty sure they understand it. And their understanding apparently differ enough to break off into their own group.
And that's not a jab at you, Im just sayin'.


> I clearly understand the message of it in its totality


That's the easy part 


> I understand it in its individual parts.


That's where it all fell apart for me. 
Had I never focused on the individual parts I might still believe. For me, the individual parts took the taste out of my mouth for the totality of it. 
Too many things I just cant swallow mentally and morally.


----------



## bullethead

jmharris23 said:


> I'm pretty sure I understand it. I'm not saying that there aren't fuzzy spots but I clearly understand the message of it in its totality and for the the most part I understand it in its individual parts.
> 
> Heck, I've even got a master's degree to prove it



I cannot help but wonder why so many others do not share your same understandings. 
I do not have a masters degree in Biblical study so I can admit that your understanding and my understanding will differ but I am not so sure that your Masters and Bart Ehrman's Masters (or everyone with a Masters in Biblical study)bring each of you to the same understanding on how those messages came to be.

I think I have a very good understanding of the many messages within the Bible and I am pretty sure my studies of the  New Testament Gospels allowed me to see the positive message(s) about Jesus.
I am sure our understandings differ on how those messages came about and the who's and why's from where the messages come from.

Over 30,000 Christian denominations have an understanding and a Billion members within those denominations have an understanding. How many are in universal agreement?


----------



## ambush80

jmharris23 said:


> Is it possible that these verses have a different intention/meaning for the believer in 2014 than they did to the original audience in 100?
> 
> Obviously medical care and ability has improved a little in the last 2000 years. What should the NT writers have encouraged their original audience to do?
> 
> Head to the ER or closest walk-in clinic? Prayer or intervention from The Lord  was the only option/hope they had.




What does it say in the Bible about how to get rid of mold?


----------



## hobbs27

It's good to know that in science and medicine all professionals are in 100% agreement. Could you imagine..If we needed to get a second opinion from a Dr?

 Why...If that were the case..then I would just give up on any faith in medicine.

And what if scientist disagreed about things like global warming? Wow..that would just be horrible! Then the people of this country would be torn as what to do...and I would give up any faith in science  altogether!


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> It's good to know that in science and medicine all professionals are in 100% agreement. Could you imagine..If we needed to get a second opinion from a Dr?
> 
> Why...If that were the case..then I would just give up on any faith in medicine.
> 
> And what if scientist disagreed about things like global warming? Wow..that would just be horrible! Then the people of this country would be torn as what to do...and I would give up any faith in science  altogether!


Anybody ever tell you that you were going to he11 to suffer for all eternity depending on which doctor you go to?


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> It's good to know that in science and medicine all professionals are in 100% agreement. Could you imagine..If we needed to get a second opinion from a Dr?



Were science books and medicine books supposedly written(inspired) by an all knowing, omnipotent, supernatural, universe creating 'being'?


----------



## hobbs27

WaltL1 said:


> Anybody ever tell you that you were going to he11 to suffer for all eternity depending on which doctor you go to?



 Ignorance is lifted up on high in arrogant people. The Bible, nor Jesus, nor the Apostles ever threatened anyone with eternal suffering.
 The concensus in Christianity right now is against me on that, but the proof is in the Book.
 See it's not the Book that's fallible, but man & the Book does an excellent job of pointing that out. Christ Kingdom is growing in numbers and knowledge. I think the grumblings and complaints I'm hearing from folks in this thread are misguided. It's not Christ, or the Bible, but man's misrepresentation of them where the fault should lie.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Were science books and medicine books supposedly written(inspired) by an all knowing, omnipotent, supernatural, universe creating 'being'?



Even if they were, men would argue about them..it's our nature, but can be a good thing, if used to show truth.


----------



## jmharris23

bullethead said:


> I cannot help but wonder why so many others do not share your same understandings.
> I do not have a masters degree in Biblical study so I can admit that your understanding and my understanding will differ but I am not so sure that your Masters and Bart Ehrman's Masters (or everyone with a Masters in Biblical study)bring each of you to the same understanding on how those messages came to be.
> 
> I think I have a very good understanding of the many messages within the Bible and I am pretty sure my studies of the  New Testament Gospels allowed me to see the positive message(s) about Jesus.
> I am sure our understandings differ on how those messages came about and the who's and why's from where the messages come from.
> 
> Over 30,000 Christian denominations have an understanding and a Billion members within those denominations have an understanding. How many are in universal agreement?




I'm not sure universal agreement on every little thing is what matters. More importantly is an agreement on what matters most. This article explains my position more eloquently than I can, if you care to read it.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/07/12/a-call-for-theological-triage-and-christian-maturity/


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> Ignorance is lifted up on high in arrogant people. The Bible, nor Jesus, nor the Apostles ever threatened anyone with eternal suffering.
> The concensus in Christianity right now is against me on that, but the proof is in the Book.
> See it's not the Book that's fallible, but man & the Book does an excellent job of pointing that out. Christ Kingdom is growing in numbers and knowledge. I think the grumblings and complaints I'm hearing from folks in this thread are misguided. It's not Christ, or the Bible, but man's misrepresentation of them where the fault should lie.


That's exactly the point thats being made about all the different interpretations. Yet many Christians will turn right around and regurgitate scripture as "proof" of their understanding and letting you know where you will go and why.
Then if the point is brought up that if its the "perfect" word why is there so many interpretation/guesses/opinions/conflicting beliefs.
That inevitably gets you the "free will" speech which is merely an escape clause.
You tried to make the point using science and medicine as a comparison. They aren't even in the same ball park.
You really don't see the difference?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> Ignorance is lifted up on high in arrogant people. The Bible, nor Jesus, nor the Apostles ever threatened anyone with eternal suffering.
> The concensus in Christianity right now is against me on that, but the proof is in the Book.
> See it's not the Book that's fallible, but man & the Book does an excellent job of pointing that out. Christ Kingdom is growing in numbers and knowledge. I think the grumblings and complaints I'm hearing from folks in this thread are misguided. *It's not Christ, or the Bible, but man's misrepresentation of them where the fault should lie*.



I agree, if you removed people, religion would be perfect. 

However, considering the Bible is, according to theologists, man's interpretation of divinely inspired verse you can't have one without the other. The closest that we've been able to come to straight gospel, straight from the horse's mouth as the phrase goes, would be Moses' tablets carried down from the mount and that wasn't exactly "all-encompassing". Sure, it covered the basic morality, with the tablets themselves now missing so we have to take it on faith that they said what we're told, but the rest of the story was filtered through the lens of man so maybe the whole thing is wonky, considering the fallibility of man and all. 

I would think that, given your previous positions, you have to at least acknowledge that possibility, even if you choose to believe it happened another way.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

jmharris23 said:


> I'm not sure universal agreement on every little thing is what matters. More importantly is an agreement on what matters most. This article explains my position more eloquently than I can, if you care to read it.
> 
> http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/07/12/a-call-for-theological-triage-and-christian-maturity/



And yet we have Christians, one even represented here on the boards with his avatar, that hold the position that the Bible isn't a bag of trail mix and you can't pick it apart. 

So Christians, at least on the surface, can't even agree on what to agree on. It makes for a very interesting study of interpersonal relationships and the effect religion and faith have on them; but it makes for a very poor edict for life, IMO.


----------



## WaltL1

jmharris23 said:


> I'm not sure universal agreement on every little thing is what matters. More importantly is an agreement on what matters most. This article explains my position more eloquently than I can, if you care to read it.
> 
> http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/07/12/a-call-for-theological-triage-and-christian-maturity/


I'm not sure who is saved and who is not falls under the category of "little thing".


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> It's good to know that in science and medicine all professionals are in 100% agreement. Could you imagine..If we needed to get a second opinion from a Dr?
> 
> Why...If that were the case..then I would just give up on any faith in medicine.
> 
> And what if scientist disagreed about things like global warming? Wow..that would just be horrible! Then the people of this country would be torn as what to do...and I would give up any faith in science  altogether!


THE difference is that Science is well aware that it is based off of the best works and opinions of humans and through a system designed to check double check and constantly test the best available Scientifc Theories  science is always ready and willing to accept new information to the contrary and change if necessary. The Bible claims it is THE infallible and un-erred WORD of an all powerful and all knowing Deity and that pretty much is the final version. For example:
God's law for lepers: Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly off. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient's right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally kill a couple doves and offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. Leviticus 14:2-52
That IS God's Word...I mean if anyone should know about curing Leprosy it should be the God that you worship. Yet why does modern medicine use other methods rather than the tried and true..work every single time...Perscription from the great pharmacist in the sky...God???


----------



## bullethead

Is the cure for Leprosy in the Bible a "fuzzy spot"?
Why hasn't it stood as the one cure that works absolutely all the time every time solely because it is straight from God's personal perscription book? 
Why does science urge modern medicine to use anything else?


----------



## 660griz

bullethead said:
			
		

> Leviticus 14:2-52
> That IS God's Word...I mean if anyone should know about curing Leprosy it should be the God that you worship. Yet why does modern medicine use other methods rather than the tried and true..work every single time...Perscription from the great pharmacist in the sky...God???



Oh no BH! You quoted the Old Testament. Now, you should know that Christians generally consider the Old Testament to be mostly void. 
The first part about creating everything, the part about the 10 commandments, and the part about hating homosexuals, and a few other carefully selected parts, you can use. Everything else, superseded by the new God in the NT.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> Is the cure for Leprosy in the Bible a "fuzzy spot"?
> Why hasn't it stood as the one cure that works absolutely all the time every time solely because it is straight from God's personal perscription book?
> Why does science urge modern medicine to use anything else?


Not sure if this will help you, but read verse 2 again.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> Oh no BH! You quoted the Old Testament. Now, you should know that Christians generally consider the Old Testament like the ramblings of a crazy cousin.
> The first part about creating everything, the part about the 10 commandments, and the part about hating homosexuals, and a few other carefully selected parts, you can use. Everything else, superseded by the new God in the NT.



That's ^^^^ why it's sometimes difficult to discuss these things with y'all.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> That's ^^^^ why it's sometimes difficult to discuss these things with y'all.



Absolutely correct.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> Absolutely correct.



We probably aren't thinking about the same reasons.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> We probably aren't thinking about the same reasons.



That is probably true too. 
I edited it.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Not sure if this will help you, but read verse 2 again.



Cleansing ritual


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> That's ^^^^ why it's sometimes difficult to discuss these things with y'all.



The tone or the truth?


----------



## jmharris23

WaltL1 said:


> I'm not sure who is saved and who is not falls under the category of "little thing".



Who said it did?


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> The tone or the truth?



The persepctive.  It would make zero sense for me to debate any of the points he made.  What he says is true-ish.  From an outsider's perspective, that is how I would view it as well.

The difference is what happened with Jesus, and how the Church operates under a grace model instead of the law.  The difference is irrelevant to a non-believer.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Oh no BH! You quoted the Old Testament. Now, you should know that Christians generally consider the Old Testament to be mostly void.
> The first part about creating everything, the part about the 10 commandments, and the part about hating homosexuals, and a few other carefully selected parts, you can use. Everything else, superseded by the new God in the NT.



Not superseded by a new God...but superseded by a new covenant between God and man.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> The persepctive.  It would make zero sense for me to debate any of the points he made.  What he says is true-ish.  From an outsider's perspective, that is how I would view it as well.
> 
> The difference is what happened with Jesus, and how the Church operates under a grace model instead of the law.  The difference is irrelevant to a non-believer.



It's how I viewed it when I was a believer, myself. Why say one thing here, then say another thing there? 

If the NT created a new covenant then there is no point to the old. Since the Bible is open to edits, and I think history shows us it very much is, then hold on to Genesis, and start up with the NT as that would at least be consistent with the current message Christians say is the "real" or "true" one.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> It's how I viewed it when I was a believer, myself. Why say one thing here, then say another thing there?



Because the OT builds to Jesus, and the NT is a post-Jesus arrangement.  Grace v law.  

Again, not really the kind-a thing we will find any common basis about.  Primarily because you won't recognize any deity have the authority to present a law, nor do you recognize people's need for grace.  



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> If the NT created a new covenant then there is no point to the old. Since the Bible is open to edits, and I think history shows us it very much is, then hold on to Genesis, and start up with the NT as that would at least be consistent with the current message Christians say is the "real" or "true" one.



The OT was written under a different circumstance.  Not that one is true and the other ain't.  It's all in application.  Application only matters to those who believe.


----------



## WaltL1

jmharris23 said:


> Who said it did?


No-one.
We were discussing different interpretations etc. To which you said -


> I'm not sure universal agreement on every little thing is what matters. More importantly is an agreement on what matters most.


I pointed out its not just the "little things" that aren't agreed upon. I would think who gets saved and who doesn't would fall into the "matters most" column.
And its a fact that there is disagreement on who will be saved, within Christianity, and who wont.
Elect/non elect, gays in heaven, divorced folks etc etc.
All have been topics, none 100% agreed upon. 
That's all, wasn't putting words in your mouth.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Not superseded by a new God...but superseded by a new covenant between God and man.



Cause God messed up on the first covenant?

Once again, whether or not the OT still applies is not in complete agreement among Christians. THIS makes discussion difficult. Discussing he!! is difficult since not all Christians agree there is one. However, I think the fault rests with the bible. The Bible muddies the waters. 
Below is an excerpt from a Christian website.



> Christians often wonder, Are Old Testament laws still in force?
> 
> The New Testament gives two basic answers to this question: Yes, and no. Some verses indicate continuity, and others indicate change. Some verses maintain the validity of the law; others describe it as having been superseded by Christ.
> 
> If we look at one group of verses, we might conclude that we have to keep all Old Testament laws. If we look at another group of verses, we might conclude that they are all done away. Both answers have scriptural support and validity, so we need to look at both sides of the question.


----------



## WaltL1

JB0704 said:


> Because the OT builds to Jesus, and the NT is a post-Jesus arrangement.  Grace v law.
> 
> Again, not really the kind-a thing we will find any common basis about.  Primarily because you won't recognize any deity have the authority to present a law, nor do you recognize people's need for grace.
> 
> 
> 
> The OT was written under a different circumstance.  Not that one is true and the other ain't.  It's all in application.  Application only matters to those who believe.


Are you sure? 
Growing up NO-ONE could hunt on Sundays because of the law which had its roots in the application of Christianity.
Im guessing that mattered a lot to non-Christians.
Seems like the law should have been Christians cant hunt on Sundays. Then your statement would be true (in this case).


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Cause God messed up on the first covenant?
> 
> Once again, whether or not the OT still applies is not in complete agreement among Christians. THIS makes discussion difficult. Discussing he!! is difficult since not all Christians agree there is one. However, I think the fault rests with the bible. The Bible muddies the waters.
> Below is an excerpt from a Christian website.



No fault in God, and no fault in scripture, again the blame falls on man for not understanding eschatology and it's importance to covenant theology.

 Just a little study reveals when the Law was completely fulfilled.


----------



## 660griz

WaltL1 said:


> Are you sure?
> Growing up NO-ONE could hunt on Sundays because of the law which had its roots in the application of Christianity.
> Im guessing that mattered a lot to non-Christians.
> Seems like the law should have been Christians cant hunt on Sundays. Then your statement would be true (in this case).



Ok. 9 of the 10 commandments are still in affect...for now. 
The Church "Council of Jerusalem" decided, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that it was not necessary for Christians to observe rules about circumcision, dietary restrictions, Sabbath observance and other aspects of Jewish law.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Because the OT builds to Jesus, and the NT is a post-Jesus arrangement.  Grace v law.
> 
> Again, not really the kind-a thing we will find any common basis about.  Primarily because you won't recognize any deity have the authority to present a law, nor do you recognize people's need for grace.
> 
> 
> 
> The OT was written under a different circumstance.  Not that one is true and the other ain't.  It's all in application.  Application only matters to those who believe.



I understand, but you're not entirely accurate. I have yet to recognize the deity in all of it. If that changes, so will their authority to do what they wish. 

As to a person's need for grace, how would you describe that to me? You're right, I don't recognize the need for it right now, but I've also not heard it phrased like that so I can't say I've heard an argument for it, which means I could change my position if I did. 

But you're saying that the OT only exists to build up to Jesus? I'm missing how the "invalid" commandments for sin in Leviticus, for example, are a build up to Jesus, unless the point is that Jesus absolved us of our responsibility to tend the other members of our own flock. 

To which "application" do you refer?


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> No fault in God, and no fault in scripture, again the blame falls on man for not understanding eschatology and it's importance to covenant theology.



Heb. 8-7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.


----------



## jmharris23

This seems appropriate here


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=3965407121001&w=466&h=263"></script><noscript>Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com</noscript>


----------



## centerpin fan

jmharris23 said:


> This seems appropriate here
> 
> 
> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=3965407121001&w=466&h=263"></script><noscript>Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com</noscript>




I won't hold my breath waiting for Newsweek's similar treatment of the Koran.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Heb. 8-7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.



Thanks for this, it's a great place to start.

Now just skip down to verse 13 and we see that they were in the transition of the two, and were not fully freed from the Law as of yet. This transitional period is what really throws men because most of have presuppositions of belief. A transitional period gets in the way of some folks belief system but there it is in v 13.


----------



## jmharris23

centerpin fan said:


> I won't hold my breath waiting for Newsweek's similar treatment of the Koran.



I wouldn't


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> But you're saying that the OT only exists to build up to Jesus? I'm missing how the "invalid" commandments for sin in Leviticus, for example, are a build up to Jesus, unless the point is that Jesus absolved us of our responsibility to tend the other members of our own flock.



Grace (forgiveness) v Law (punishment.....what you'll find in Leviticus).  Jesus presents grace.

Again, we will not get anywhere with this as you do not accept the premise (need for either, nor a deity mandating such).



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> To which "application" do you refer?



How is grace or law applied if somebody doesn't believe it exists?


----------



## centerpin fan

Newsweek:



> ... also presents a twisted version of Emperor Constantine’s influence in Christian history, getting right the fact that Constantine called and influenced the Council of Nicaea but getting facts wrong when he claimed that Constantine influenced the formation of the New Testament canon by determining which books were to be included.



http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/12/29/newsweek-on-the-bible-so-misrepresented-its-a-sin/


Gee, where have I heard that before?


----------



## JB0704

WaltL1 said:


> Are you sure?
> Growing up NO-ONE could hunt on Sundays because of the law which had its roots in the application of Christianity.
> Im guessing that mattered a lot to non-Christians.
> Seems like the law should have been Christians cant hunt on Sundays. Then your statement would be true (in this case).



I think you are discussing how Christians apply their beliefs to the contemporary laws.  I would agree with you on whether that is appropriate or not.

Just because a Christian does something doesn't mean it's the "Christian" thing to do.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Grace (forgiveness) v Law (punishment.....what you'll find in Leviticus).  Jesus presents grace.
> Again, we will not get anywhere with this as you do not accept the premise (need for either, nor a deity mandating such).
> How is grace or law applied if somebody doesn't believe it exists?



So the OT commands punishment, Jesus commands, or presents, forgiveness, and since Jesus is NT then forgiveness wins out, right? 

As for laws, I turn to man's laws for justification:

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it." I always thought that was a very self serving statement, on the part of the criminal justice system, since laws are open to change at any time and, unless you study all of them all of the time, there's no way for any person to be cognizant of all of them so ignorance seems to be the default state with at least some of the laws some of the time. 

How does that play with a deity? Well, their "laws" should be more absolute than even man's. I mean, what's the point of being all-powerful, and all-knowing, if some little insignificant microbe (i.e. Us) can disrespect you and your laws, expecting forgiveness for it at the end of the day? I know, that paradox is "solved" by the "gift of free will" variable, but it still doesn't make sense. It's like asking me to solve for X, and when I get close to the answer throwing in a Y with no control to help solve it. 

I may not accept it, but that doesn't mean you can't lay it out. I don't have to buy into it for it to be valid for you. 

But here's the thing about it all. God's laws aren't vague, nor are they ever-changing. You can argue that man's interpretation of them is, on both counts, and you'd be right; however, the word is the word and it is there for all to see. 

If Jesus opened the doors to forgiveness for all sins, then the "law" really isn't the law since you can do any, and all of them, but be repentant and accept Him as your Lord and Savior, and get away scot free. That makes the "law" more like "guidelines" and only if you really want them to be, but don't worry, we expect you to fail (another whammy of double standards and double-speak) and we will still welcome you with open arms if you come to us with the right attitude and feeling in your heart. Moreover, there's no need to even know the sins, since you're going to break at least some of them anyway (remember they know you're going to since you're imperfect) despite your best intentions. 

Now, I've answered your questions, to the best of my limited ability and time, so please make your case as to A) why grace is necessary, and B) how you can have absolution for sins following proscribing of sins, without invalidating same sins.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I understand, but you're not entirely accurate. I have yet to recognize the deity in all of it. If that changes, so will their authority to do what they wish.
> 
> As to a person's need for grace, how would you describe that to me? You're right, I don't recognize the need for it right now, but I've also not heard it phrased like that so I can't say I've heard an argument for it, which means I could change my position if I did.
> 
> But you're saying that the OT only exists to build up to Jesus? I'm missing how the "invalid" commandments for sin in Leviticus, for example, are a build up to Jesus, unless the point is that Jesus absolved us of our responsibility to tend the other members of our own flock.
> 
> To which "application" do you refer?



If I may interrupt and jump in.

I'm not speaking for JB here, but I think ( I hope) I know what he's trying to say ......maybe.  

The point of the OT revolves around The Law in the OT.
It's the heart of the OT in many ways.  The whole point of the Law was to make mankind understand that they couldn't keep/live it, therefore they needed a savior.  This this is why it's said that the OT points to the NT OR Christ.
Sorry if this comes across as too simplistic.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Now, I've answered your questions, to the best of my limited ability and time, so please make your case as to A) why grace is necessary,



Cause, according to my belief system, I have sinned and require it.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> and B) how you can have absolution for sins following proscribing of sins, without invalidating same sins.



Please clarify.  And understand, my question to you was rhetorical.


----------



## JB0704

SemperFiDawg said:


> If I may interrupt and jump in.
> 
> I'm not speaking for JB here, but I think ( I hope) I know what he's trying to say ......maybe.
> 
> The point of the OT revolves around The Law in the OT.
> It's the heart of the OT in many ways.  The whole point of the Law was to make mankind understand that they couldn't keep/live it, therefore they needed a savior.  This this is why it's said that the OT points to the NT OR Christ.
> Sorry if this comes across as too simplistic.



Yes.


----------



## Artfuldodger

SemperFiDawg said:


> If I may interrupt and jump in.
> 
> I'm not speaking for JB here, but I think ( I hope) I know what he's trying to say ......maybe.
> 
> The point of the OT revolves around The Law in the OT.
> It's the heart of the OT in many ways.  The whole point of the Law was to make mankind understand that they couldn't keep/live it, therefore they needed a savior.  This this is why it's said that the OT points to the NT OR Christ.
> Sorry if this comes across as too simplistic.



Why did the Old Testament need to be so long to get this understanding across? Why do some Christians insist there is more to salvation than grace? 
We've got the whole Old Testament as proof that we can't live a righteous life and thus needed a Savior.


----------



## Artfuldodger

Many of the Old Testament books are for prophetic purposes.
Now if God knew beforehand that Adam would sin and therefore we would eventually need a Savior, and therefore orchestrate a Covenant that he knew man could not keep, why was this time period so long? Why was it even needed? 
If everything was caused by God, foreseen by God, and prophesied by God, where is this freewill we talk about?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> If I may interrupt and jump in.
> 
> I'm not speaking for JB here, but I think ( I hope) I know what he's trying to say ......maybe.
> 
> The point of the OT revolves around The Law in the OT.
> It's the heart of the OT in many ways.  The whole point of the Law was to make mankind understand that they couldn't keep/live it, therefore they needed a savior.  This this is why it's said that the OT points to the NT OR Christ.
> Sorry if this comes across as too simplistic.



I'm fine with simplistic, but that's not simplistic. That, and no offense to you intended, is circular, however. 

He wrote the laws, knowing that we would never live up to them and needed a savior, so he gave us a savior after documenting, then illustrating, our invariable sins. 



JB0704 said:


> Cause, according to my belief system, I have sinned and require it.
> 
> Please clarify.  And understand, my question to you was rhetorical.



Fair enough about the rhetorical question. 

My point is that if I tell you that breaking a vase will get you eternity in time out, knowing all the while that you WILL, not might, break the vase, then tell you that it's okay, that I love you, and that you're forgiven when you do break it; what was the point of making the breaking of the vase a sin? 



Artfuldodger said:


> Many of the Old Testament books are for prophetic purposes.
> Now if God knew beforehand that Adam would sin and therefore we would eventually need a Savior, and therefore orchestrate a Covenant that he knew man could not keep, why was this time period so long? Why was it even needed?
> If everything was caused by God, foreseen by God, and prophesied by God, where is this freewill we talk about?



Okay, so leave the prophecies and ditch the sins that we're already forgiven, and told to forgive, for. As long as we're editing, which was done in history, we might as well edit for clarity, I would think. 

Now that fatalism is a good question in how it plays with our supposed free will. If God knows everything, and how we're all going to dance to his tunes anyway, then what's the point of telling us anything is a sin? Those who would abide the commandments, due to his engineering, would do so whether they knew of the sin and consequences or not, and those who would sin anyway obviously don't care about knowing the punishments, or are unable to decide differently. That would make free will, at least relative to the human, an illusion. Unless God also planned every contingency to every decision by every person, but it would seem that this couldn't be the case if there is a desired outcome, since at least some of the decisions would, theoretically, have to be determined to get there. Maybe you get to decide that you eat oatmeal for breakfast, but no matter what you do that fender bender will happen this morning on your way to the office. 

To me, though, I feel like I have free will, so if there is a God, and I have no evidence that there is not, I presume him to be hands-off after setting the initial conditions for the "experiment".


----------



## WaltL1

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I'm fine with simplistic, but that's not simplistic. That, and no offense to you intended, is circular, however.
> 
> He wrote the laws, knowing that we would never live up to them and needed a savior, so he gave us a savior after documenting, then illustrating, our invariable sins.
> 
> 
> 
> Fair enough about the rhetorical question.
> 
> My point is that if I tell you that breaking a vase will get you eternity in time out, knowing all the while that you WILL, not might, break the vase, then tell you that it's okay, that I love you, and that you're forgiven when you do break it; what was the point of making the breaking of the vase a sin?
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, so leave the prophecies and ditch the sins that we're already forgiven, and told to forgive, for. As long as we're editing, which was done in history, we might as well edit for clarity, I would think.
> 
> Now that fatalism is a good question in how it plays with our supposed free will. If God knows everything, and how we're all going to dance to his tunes anyway, then what's the point of telling us anything is a sin? Those who would abide the commandments, due to his engineering, would do so whether they knew of the sin and consequences or not, and those who would sin anyway obviously don't care about knowing the punishments, or are unable to decide differently. That would make free will, at least relative to the human, an illusion. Unless God also planned every contingency to every decision by every person, but it would seem that this couldn't be the case if there is a desired outcome, since at least some of the decisions would, theoretically, have to be determined to get there. Maybe you get to decide that you eat oatmeal for breakfast, but no matter what you do that fender bender will happen this morning on your way to the office.
> 
> To me, though, I feel like I have free will, so if there is a God, and I have no evidence that there is not, I presume him to be hands-off after setting the initial conditions for the "experiment".





> My point is that if I tell you that breaking a vase will get you eternity in time out, knowing all the while that you WILL, not might, break the vase, then tell you that it's okay, that I love you, and that you're forgiven when you do break it; what was the point of making the breaking of the vase a sin?


To give the APPEARANCE of being oh so understanding and forgiving so that the vase breaker will be so very appreciative and think very highly of you.
That is was a all a setup? - sshhhh
One possibility.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

WaltL1 said:


> To give the APPEARANCE of being oh so understanding and forgiving so that the vase breaker will be so very appreciative and think very highly of you.
> That is was a all a setup? - sshhhh
> One possibility.



That is one possibility, but not the only. I'm asking for the X factor from the people of faith.


----------



## WaltL1

centerpin fan said:


> Newsweek:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/12/29/newsweek-on-the-bible-so-misrepresented-its-a-sin/
> 
> 
> Gee, where have I heard that before?


Wasn't here.


----------



## centerpin fan

WaltL1 said:


> Wasn't here.



Oh, c'mon.  This forum is filled with Constantine conspiracy theory threads.


----------



## atlashunter

hobbs27 said:


> My disagreement comes in the context. It was not said to me but the disciples of Christ and it was for a sign. These things actually took place as Mark 16:20 confirms that they went and preached every where and confirmed the word with signs.
> 
> Speaking in tongues, surviving serpent bites as Paul did,healing the sick, was all signs for the early church  before the scriptures of the new testament were recorded.
> 
> & yes I know about the nuts that believe Mark 16 is literally written to them.



Those verses appear to be a later addition. They don't exist in the earliest known manuscripts.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> My point is that if I tell you that breaking a vase will get you eternity in time out, knowing all the while that you WILL, not might, break the vase, then tell you that it's okay, that I love you, and that you're forgiven when you do break it; what was the point of making the breaking of the vase a sin?



I don't make the rules, and I didn't write the Bible, so I can only give you my best guess:  the point of the whole exercise isn't the breaking of the vase, or the request for forgiveness, but the faith that leads to the request.  Ephesians 2:8-9.


----------



## WaltL1

centerpin fan said:


> Oh, c'mon.  This forum is filled with Constantine conspiracy theory threads.


Every time the subject of Constantine comes up you make the same claim. And every time we tell you to look up the threads of what we actually say. But you don't because if you did you would stop.
So in keeping with tradition ---- go look up the threads.


----------



## centerpin fan

WaltL1 said:


> Every time the subject of Constantine comes up you make the same claim. And every time we tell you to look up the threads of what we actually say. But you don't because if you did you would stop.
> So in keeping with tradition ---- go look up the threads.



I don't have to look them up.  I read them and posted in them.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> I don't make the rules, and I didn't write the Bible, so I can only give you my best guess:  the point of the whole exercise isn't the breaking of the vase, or the request for forgiveness, but the faith that leads to the request.  Ephesians 2:8-9.



Okay.


----------



## WaltL1

centerpin fan said:


> I don't have to look them up.  I read them and posted in them.


Did you read these -


> The council decided





> You've been given the information numerous times before. Look up the threads. This information will be the same as that information


Both posted by me to you. Took 2 seconds which is all the time Im willing to spend on it.


----------



## centerpin fan

WaltL1 said:


> Did you read these -



Yes, and I read this as well:




Diogenes said:


> I’ve been away on business for a bit, and I’ve noticed that the Bible II thread is also missing, replaced by Bible III, praising the glories of agreement  . . . HMMMM . . . . .   But I had a bit more to say on that Bible II thread, and since it is nowhere to be found, with your kind permission I’ll say my bit here . . .
> 
> Unfortunately, as the niggling continues over just which words may or may not have been changed in this Book or that of the NT, the point is missed.
> 
> It is always deliberate, of course, for the self-described ‘Defenders of the Faith’ to set a rhetorical brushfire as a distraction from the actual point at hand, but our attention is not so easily diverted.
> 
> Notwithstanding what can only be described as the chronic narcissism that makes it impossible for some to see or understand anything that is not what they wish to see or believe, the history is quite clear.  Odd little distractions, fits of pique aimed at deleting entire lines of thought, and sophomoric verbal tricks are the stock-in-trade of Democrats, you will notice,  and won’t win the day.
> 
> I did not say that any particular bit of ‘Scripture’ was revised or rewritten “at the Council of Nicea.”   As has been pointed out, the Official Agenda of that Council (though murky, nefarious, and wholly revisionist in intent) did not include the actual writing of ‘Scripture.’  That had already been done for them.  Officially, they were far more concerned with marginalizing the Eastern Bishops by exclusion and physically eliminating dissenting thought. (Sound familiar?)
> 
> Constantine had his own agenda, however, and had spent ten years creating a mountain of fictitious ‘authentication’ to back it up.  Having assembled the bulk of the Western ‘Bishops’ at this Council, he essentially turned the situation into a hostage crisis at the point of his sword  -- here Constantine gave each a simple choice, which was to ratify his version and swear an oath, or be banished or killed outright.  After the few leaders of the opposition suffered just such fates, it took no time at all for the rest of the assembly to see the light.
> 
> You see, it isn’t that Eusebius spent ten years carefully rewriting each of the ‘Books’ that were to make up the NT (though no small number of what we will charitably call ‘translation errors’ certainly occurred), but rather that he spent that time sifting through hundreds of equally credible accounts, Gospels, and ‘Divinely Inspired’ writings and decided to throw most of them away out of fear for his life if he upset the nutball Emperor by including them.  ‘Authenticity’ was what Constantine decided it was.  Period.
> 
> The Gospel of Thomas?  (Poof.)  The Gospel of Mary Magdalene? (Poof.) Hundreds of contemporaneous writings were put to the flame (Sound familiar?)  Anyone found in possession of these writings was executed.  This is why archeologists find the few writings that remain buried in caves and the like – wise people hide books from madmen who seek to burn not only the books but those who own them.
> 
> The revision was not done so much by editing individual sentences.  It was done by forcibly eliminating entire works and killing anyone associated with them.  (Sound familiar?)
> 
> Knowing this to be true, and knowing that it is equally true of certain ideological movements even today, we are forced into a difficult but hardly unique need to make a set of ethical and value decisions.  Here, allow me to make a parallel – when we see a News Story, and know that a great deal was left out quite deliberately, in order to serve the political aims of the reporting parties in question, we must conclude that this act of willful omission betrays any smug, sanctimonious declarations by journalists concerning their ‘objectivity.’
> 
> Similarly, when we know that certain works were chosen, by men, to be included in the ‘Book’ while others were not, we are forced to conclude that the ‘Divine Word Of God’ is actually somewhat less than that.  The wholesale burning of disagreement and the ‘justifiable’ murder of dissenters betrays any possibility that the final work might have anything to do with anything other than the agendas of men.  What is included may well be, in some instances, ‘contemporaneous,’ and some bits may well represent the opinions and thoughts of actual people – but the fact remains that the works is incomplete, and deliberately so by the hand of man.
> 
> One might also note that several books of the NT are of unattributed authorship, and present themselves as compilations of thoughts.
> 
> (And, as has just been demonstrated – the heavy hand of dictatorship which will only tolerate one way of thinking has the ability – temporarily – to delete our words, but not our thoughts.  So the idea of creating a singular viewpoint by eliminating others is hardly unprecedented, and given the lack of success such a strategy has enjoyed throughout history it is truly odd that some attempt to employ it even today . . . )
> 
> There are worse prisons than words (the assembled ‘bishops’ obviously decided), and worse tragedies than sacrificing one’s life and mind to words.  But there might be no worse prison and no worse tragedy than ignorance – than blindly following words simply because you were told to do so, without ever questioning them.  That is a betrayal of yourself.
> 
> I have said that I consider organized religions to be evil, in large part because they are completely constructed by men with the intention of controlling other men.  But read carefully here, lest you mishear the message – the religious person, the individual, who follows a religion with benign intent, hoping only to do well and lead a moral life is handed a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card.  Those who become zealots, and bomb abortion clinics or become suicide bombers or assassinate rivals in the name of their ‘religious convictions’ are the shining exemplars of what is wrong with organized belief.
> 
> Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and forethought.  Most people do not stop to think or to reason – they simply follow because they were taught to do so.  Few of the individuals, even among the zealots, qualify as evil people – their leaders, on the other hand, fit the bill.  Our world is filled with tragedies wrought by the blind following of words.
> 
> A thoughtful person, should one exist, might see the history of the world revealed here in a microcosm, and might be disturbed by the parallel . . .



http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=478500&highlight=constantine


There are loads of threads just like this.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

Artfuldodger said:


> Why did the Old Testament need to be so long to get this understanding across?



Because a short version would just confuse everyone


----------



## WaltL1

centerpin fan said:


> Yes, and I read this as well:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=478500&highlight=constantine
> 
> 
> There are loads of threads just like this.


Prove that ONE post wrong, not by just saying so, but with the actual history and you will have a point on this ONE post.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Because a short version would just confuse everyone



Seems like the unabridged version does that as well.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Thanks for this, it's a great place to start.



So is it true the old covenant was faulty?


> Originally Posted by hobbs27  View Post
> No fault in God, and no fault in scripture, again the blame falls on man for not understanding eschatology and it's importance to covenant theology.





> Heb. 8-7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.



Seems to me that is clearly saying the first covenant had faults so, a second was needed.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I'm fine with simplistic, but that's not simplistic. That, and no offense to you intended, is circular, however.
> 
> He wrote the laws, knowing that we would never live up to them and needed a savior, so he gave us a savior after documenting, then illustrating, our invariable sins.



It's circular reasoning if, IF, man has no autonomy or free will which is not the case.  I know some believe in strict predestination, but to me that argument is so full of holes it's comical as well as non scriptural.  It may not be circular reasoning with limited predestination, depending on how strict it's held.

But yes,if there is ABSOLUTE sovereignty of God over man(which I neither observe myself nor find substantive scriptural support) then YES, it's circular reasoning.  Not only that, but what's worse is it's either a giant shell game created by God in which his motives appear malevolent, or simply God does not exist.


----------



## centerpin fan

WaltL1 said:


> Prove that ONE post wrong, not by just saying so, but with the actual history and you will have a point on this ONE post.



C'mon. 

I spent a solid month proving that one post wrong.  I'm not gonna do it all over again just for kicks.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Seems like the unabridged version does that as well.



Sorry, I couldn't resist.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> It's circular reasoning if, IF, man has no autonomy or free will which is not the case.  I know some believe in strict predestination, but to me that argument is so full of holes it's comical as well as non scriptural.  It may not be circular reasoning with limited predestination, depending on how strict it's held.
> 
> But yes,if there is ABSOLUTE sovereignty of God over man(which I neither observe myself nor find substantive scriptural support) then YES, it's circular reasoning.  Not only that, *but what's worse is it's either a giant shell game created by God in which his motives appear malevolent, or simply God does not exist*.



How do you know you have free will, rather than the illusion of it? 

I find this last part very, very interesting being posted by a man with the avatar you do, but maybe you're just acknowledging the logical conclusion of the circumstances, rather than exposing your feelings on it. Devil's advocate, so to say. 

But then I ask, do you believe that God knows us all before we are born? What, if any, are the limits of that knowledge, and how does that play with omniscience? To be omniscient, you have to be _all_-knowing, not some knowing. Kind of like asking if he can make a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift it. Answer either affirmatively and you invalidate claims to being all-powerful. 

Free will is a constant variable, an X that can never be solved for until the decision is made. You can plan on contingencies and play the odds of likely outcomes, but that's rolling the dice, and not to be confused with omniscience.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> My point is that if I tell you that breaking a vase will get you eternity in time out, knowing all the while that you WILL, not might, break the vase, then tell you that it's okay, that I love you, and that you're forgiven when you do break it; what was the point of making the breaking of the vase a sin? .



The same reason you warn anyone you love of the consequences of bad decisions......to keep them safe.

Love is at least in part, based on living within the parameters of that allow the relationship to thrive.  You step outside of those parameters and there are consequences.  That's true of any relationship, be it with your kids, your spouse or God.  The Law was given to protect.  The Grace is given to restore.  Both are given based on love.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> The same reason you warn anyone you love of the consequences of bad decisions......to keep them safe.
> 
> Love is at least in part, based on living within the parameters of that allow the relationship to thrive.  You step outside of those parameters and there are consequences.  That's true of any relationship, be it with your kids, your spouse or God.  The Law was given to protect.  The Grace is given to restore.  Both are given based on love.



I agree, at least with earthly relationships. 

Everything I've heard, or read, or been told, about God suggests that there is no sin that He can't wash away with a repentant heart. 

We could argue the definition of repentance all we want, but that still doesn't matter to God. His definition, if there is one, is His. 

But again, that goes back to a few key points. 

1) You don't know that your kid will break that vase, any more than you know your spouse will cheat. God, supposedly, knows all of that right now. 

2) We all have our house rules, some are more absolute than others, but let's draw an analogy for a second. Let's say that I invite you to my house for dinner. I tell you that I love my dog more than anything else, and command you not to kill it. For whatever reason, you decide that killing my dog is the thing to do and go through with it, after I've clearly proscribed it to you in our initial social contract. I don't know about you, but no matter how many times you ask for my forgiveness, or how badly your heart aches by being left out in the cold by me, but you will never, ever again be allowed to set foot in my house, and I will place a restraining order against you so I never have to see you or speak to you again. Sure, you can chalk that up to me being human, whereas God would forgive because He is divine, but I come back to the problem that if there are no consequences for breaking the rules, if you have the right "heart", then there is no point to the rules. You should be able to identify the right hearts without the testing. 

3) The whole thing reeks of a test that some are doomed to fail by predetermination, i.e. they were born into evil hearts. Others are doomed to fail by their gifts, such as myself, if I am wrong in my skepticism on faith. Still others are doomed to failure because they believed, but not in the right God. Others are born to succeed because they are born with the open mind to take things at face value and were lucky enough to be shown the correct God either through nature, discovering it for themselves, or nurture, in that their family and friends brought them to the fold. The worst part of it is that there's way to study for this test. Sure, some could snarkily point to the Bible and say, "Right there's your manual..." But how do you know that it is the right one amongst the myriad texts out there, each of which have their own claims, of same substantive value, to being the truth. How can one ever hope to separate the wheat from the chaff in one lifetime, in order to come proper to the deity upon their death? Or to be reincarnated with an improved station as opposed to punishment of lower station for not getting it right. 

It seems unimaginably cruel, to me as a human, for a deity to hide behind a veil of mystery, demand faith, and punish doubt, without giving the majority of their flock an honest go at getting it right. But then there's that whole forgiveness thing, again, which says that I might yet be okay. I like the idea of being okay, but it invalidates everything that came before it if I get to walk in with people of faith, after having been a skeptic most of my life, and rarely having lived the straight and narrow.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> So is it true the old covenant was faulty?



Yes. Probably not in the way you are thinking. What the Old Covenant lacked was eternal life, it exposed sin in man, and sin brought death.{ seperation of man and God} or sometimes referred to as spiritual death.

 This is where Sheol or Hades comes in. When someone gave up the ghost in the old covenant their soul went to Sheol/Hades  <--- same place one is from Hebrew the other from Greek...The KJV misinterpreted this place as he11 which is very unfortunate because it is such a good translation otherwise.

Hades was divided into seperate chambers, we know of two ;;Paradise and torments. Lazarus and the rich man were both in this place seperated by a gulf. Adam, Moses, Samuel, David..all these people were in this place at the time Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin for " whosoever will"  He went to the center of the earth as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days . He released many of these people from paradise and they were resurrected after His resurrection.

 When the Old Covenant was complete and the last days were over he had emptied this place also known as death. His grace gives eternal life---we no longer go to "death"..hades...or Sheol. We { Christians } leave this body and are present with the Lord.

 The Old Covenant and law was a mere shadow of things to come.. The perfect has come, so yes again  compared to the new covenant of grace by Christ the old was faulty.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

hobbs27 said:


> Yes. Probably not in the way you are thinking. What the Old Covenant lacked was eternal life, it exposed sin in man, and sin brought death.{ seperation of man and God} or sometimes referred to as spiritual death.
> 
> This is where Sheol or Hades comes in. When someone gave up the ghost in the old covenant their soul went to Sheol/Hades  <--- same place one is from Hebrew the other from Greek...The KJV misinterpreted this place as he11 which is very unfortunate because it is such a good translation otherwise.
> 
> Hades was divided into seperate chambers, we know of two ;;Paradise and torments. Lazarus and the rich man were both in this place seperated by a gulf. Adam, Moses, Samuel, David..all these people were in this place at the time Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin for " whosoever will"  He went to the center of the earth as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days . He released many of these people from paradise and they were resurrected after His resurrection.
> 
> When the Old Covenant was complete and the last days were over he had emptied this place also known as death. His grace gives eternal life---we no longer go to "death"..hades...or Sheol. We { Christians } leave this body and are present with the Lord.
> 
> The Old Covenant and law was a mere shadow of things to come.. The perfect has come, so yes again  compared to the new covenant of grace by Christ the old was faulty.



That would mean that God isn't inerrant.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> It's heartfelt because they want to believe in something that the evidence points to isn't true.  It's more like heartache.



Heartache is not a bad description.
While yet being heart-full of hope.
Many have...and some here well understand, it is not an imaginary place...just untenable without all the help there is.
Yes, a stretching takes place, almost as though between poles...till the seeming "both" are revealed as one.
Groaning and rejoicing are not mutually exclusive.


----------



## hobbs27

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> That would mean that God isn't inerrant.



No, it means man fails God, but out of love He made a sacrifice that we can obtain eternal life with Him.


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Heartache is not a bad description.
> While yet being heart-full of hope.
> Many have...and some here well understand, it is not an imaginary place...just untenable without all the help there is.
> Yes, a stretching takes place, almost as though between poles...till the seeming "both" are revealed as one.
> Groaning and rejoicing are not mutually exclusive.



I swear.  Sometimes I feel like I would understand you better if I were high.


----------



## WaltL1

ambush80 said:


> I swear.  Sometimes I feel like I would understand you better if I were high.


----------



## ambush80

WaltL1 said:


>




Didn't help


----------



## bullethead

Imagine having 30 minutes for lunch and being second in line behind Izzy at a fast food counter.
"Sir may I take your order? "
"Hunger,perhaps, as some in here can well attest, has driven me to park...dock if you will..in your lot  and enter a doorway... of sorts...to a world of aromatic bliss. The faint whiff of dill has my palette yearning for a Whopper yet the allure of original chicken sandwiches can't help but take my taste buds to a realm of heightened sensitivity only to be rivaled by my mind as it salivates over a 2 for $5 bargain....................................................................................
29 minutes later........to onion ring or not to onion ring......that is the question.......

Oh well maybe there is an old fortune cookie in the glovebox that will hold me over till supper...


----------



## Artfuldodger

ambush80 said:


> Didn't help



Try Peyote!


----------



## SemperFiDawg

ambush80 said:


> I swear.  Sometimes I feel like I would understand you better if I were high.



I've never been that high.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

bullethead said:


> Imagine having 30 minutes for lunch and being second in line behind Izzy at a fast food counter.
> "Sir may I take your order? "
> "Hunger,perhaps, as some in here can well attest, has driven me to park...dock if you will..in your lot  and enter a doorway... of sorts...to a world of aromatic bliss. The faint whiff of dill has my palette yearning for a Whopper yet the allure of original chicken sandwiches can't help but take my taste buds to a realm of heightened sensitivity only to be rivaled by my mind as it salivates over a 2 for $5 bargain....................................................................................
> 29 minutes later........to onion ring or not to onion ring......that is the question.......
> 
> Oh well maybe there is an old fortune cookie in the glovebox that will hold me over till supper...



I always get behind THAT person in line or the old lady arguing over a nickel difference in the tag or counting out $5.27 in change from 3 different change purses.  Call it my curse in life.  It happens every cotton picking time.  There's been times I just paid the bill to get them out of the line.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> I swear.  Sometimes I feel like I would understand you better if I were high.



You are wanted...high.


----------



## Artfuldodger

SemperFiDawg said:


> The same reason you warn anyone you love of the consequences of bad decisions......to keep them safe.
> 
> Love is at least in part, based on living within the parameters of that allow the relationship to thrive.  You step outside of those parameters and there are consequences.  That's true of any relationship, be it with your kids, your spouse or God.  The Law was given to protect.  The Grace is given to restore.  Both are given based on love.



Then we could assume the Old Testament Laws were in part given to protect. Given out of love from God. 
I would imagine some were given just to show obedience to God. 
How did grace take the place of this protection?  Why would God not expect us to follow rules implemented for our own safety? 
Were men ever expected to follow these rules? Was Adam expected to ever follow God's covenant with him? 
Keep in mind that God has forseen enough of the future to have the Word with him at Creation. The Creation was made through Jesus with his mission in place from Creation.


----------



## Artfuldodger

If the Old Testament/Covenant was to teach us that we could never keep the Law and thus needed a Savior, was Adam's Covenant for the same purpose? In other words was Adam set up to get his rebellion over with? 
God plants two trees in the Garden and gives Adam curosity. He doesn't even warn Adam of Satan. He leaves the gate the the Garden open. Perhaps Adam had a choice but his choice was manipulated just a tiny bit by God to teach him/us a lesson.

http://www.biblestudy.org/ychoice/did-god-want-adam-and-eve-to-sin.html


----------



## ambush80

SemperFiDawg said:


> I've never been that high.




Me neither.  Might be really cool.




Artfuldodger said:


> Try Peyote!



....but in a safe way.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin for " whosoever will"



Ok. I stated something to the effect of there being an old God and a new God, the response is there is only one God. If that is true, how can God sacrifice himself. He has always been here and always will be, what is the big sacrifice?
Becoming human, playing dead, and returning to the neverworld? That aint a sacrifice. That's a show.


----------



## 660griz

Artfuldodger said:


> Try Peyote!



O.k.


----------



## atlashunter

660griz said:


> Ok. I stated something to the effect of there being an old God and a new God, the response is there is only one God. If that is true, how can God sacrifice himself. He has always been here and always will be, what is the big sacrifice?
> Becoming human, playing dead, and returning to the neverworld? That aint a sacrifice. That's a show.



Not just a sacrifice of himself but to himself.


----------



## bullethead

atlashunter said:


> Not just a sacrifice of himself but to himself.



And done in such a small theater with a limited audience.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Ok. I stated something to the effect of there being an old God and a new God, the response is there is only one God. If that is true, how can God sacrifice himself. He has always been here and always will be, what is the big sacrifice?
> Becoming human, playing dead, and returning to the neverworld? That aint a sacrifice. That's a show.



You answered your own question in this and didnt even realize it. He felt pain, He was tempted, He feared, He was man for some 30+ years, an equation science cant explain 100% man and 100% God.. but those that stay two dimensional cannot see past the worldly.

 John 3:12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?


----------



## Artfuldodger

I would think sacrificing your one and only son would be more of a sacrifice than sacrificing yourself.


----------



## bullethead

> John 3:12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?



If the Bee Ess Ometer is going off because the earthly things are untrue there is no reason to believe even more outlandish and unprovable claims.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> You answered your own question in this and didnt even realize it. He felt pain, He was tempted, He feared, He was man for some 30+ years, an equation science cant explain 100% man and 100% God.. but those that stay two dimensional cannot see past the worldly.



Really. What did he have to fear? 
God >>>Man God>>>God
God knew what was going to happen when he became a man. He knows all. He knew he would put on a martyr show for the people and then carry on with being God. 

Like if I wanted to be a Lab puppy, make folks love me and then, I die and become a man again. What have I sacrificed? Made some folks sad. Made my wife cry, 'Marley and Me', but in the end, I have lost nothing...except time but, hey, what is time to a God.


----------



## atlashunter

hobbs27 said:


> John 3:12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?



Proof that the author knew it takes a special kind of gullible. On the other hand there are plenty of believers with healthy skepticism of earthly things but none when it comes to the religion they happened to be indoctrinated into by accident of birth. If only they exercised that skepticism consistently.


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> You answered your own question in this and didnt even realize it. He felt pain, He was tempted, He feared, He was man for some 30+ years, an equation science cant explain 100% man and 100% God.. but those that stay two dimensional cannot see past the worldly.
> 
> John 3:12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?





> an equation science cant explain 100% man and 100% God..


Statements like this baffle me. They don't have a second of thought put into them.


----------



## bullethead

660griz said:


> Really. What did he have to fear?
> God >>>Man God>>>God
> God knew what was going to happen when he became a man. He knows all. He knew he would put on a martyr show for the people and then carry on with being God.
> 
> Like if I wanted to be a Lab puppy, make folks love me and then, I die and become a man again. What have I sacrificed? Made some folks sad. Made my wife cry, 'Marley and Me', but in the end, I have lost nothing...except time but, hey, what is time to a God.



And to muddy the waters a little more we need some back story on your time as a puppy. You would have to be a Lab puppy that shows up at the door out of nowhere, play with family for three years, have the neighbors accuse you of barking too loud and put you in the pound. Then the pound decides to let your neighbors choose to euthanize you or not. They choose to have you put to death.
100 years later YOU would have to inspire some writers to write conflicting stories about 660Griz the lab puppy who did miraculous things around the neighborhood and then came to life 3 days after he was killed only to to be last seen chasing a duck into the clouds where you turn back into 660griz the man and sit back and watch the effects of your master plan.


----------



## hobbs27

WaltL1 said:


> Statements like this baffle me. They don't have a second of thought put into them.



Im sure they do.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> And to muddy the waters a little more we need some back story on your time as a puppy. You would have to be a Lab puppy that shows up at the door out of nowhere, play with family for three years, have the neighbors accuse you of barking too loud and put you in the pound. Then the pound decides to let your neighbors choose to euthanize you or not. They choose to have you put to death.
> 100 years later YOU would have to inspire some writers to write conflicting stories about 660Griz the lab puppy who did miraculous things around the neighborhood and then came to life 3 days after he was killed only to to be last seen chasing a duck into the clouds where you turn back into 660griz the man and sit back and watch the effects of your master plan.



Not exactly the atonement, nor the reason for it....but I'm not going to argue with blind men over the color of anything.


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> Im sure they do.


And Im glad they do. It means Im thinking rationally.

Why exactly would you expect science to explain your FAITH based beliefs?


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Not exactly the atonement, nor the reason for it....but I'm not going to argue with blind men over the color of anything.



But you speak for the mute and write for the illiterate.


----------



## 660griz

bullethead said:


> And to muddy the waters a little more we need some back story on your time as a puppy. You would have to be a Lab puppy that shows up at the door out of nowhere, play with family for three years, have the neighbors accuse you of barking too loud and put you in the pound. Then the pound decides to let your neighbors choose to euthanize you or not. They choose to have you put to death.
> 100 years later YOU would have to inspire some writers to write conflicting stories about 660Griz the lab puppy who did miraculous things around the neighborhood and then came to life 3 days after he was killed only to to be last seen chasing a duck into the clouds where you turn back into 660griz the man and sit back and watch the effects of your master plan.



Thanks BH. I was going to write about it but, what would be the mystery in that? Actually, my life as a dog was relatively boring but, you know what they say, you can either be truthful or interesting.


----------



## WaltL1

ambush80 said:


> Didn't help


If at first you don't succeed try try again


----------



## Artfuldodger

ambush80 said:


> Originally Posted by Artfuldodger
> Try Peyote!
> 
> 
> ....but in a safe way.



It helps these folks:

Peyote is a spiritual medicine. It can bring us in touch with the God within us, our Heavenly Father and our Earthly Mother. Peyote puts us in balance again with the Earth underneath our feet... Peyote is a plant sacrament. It is a plant teacher. It is a way of life. Our time in these bodies is brief. When we eat the Peyote we experience time and eternity, and it is from that vantage that, the next day, we can live our life in a very positive and non-trivial way, realizing that this day could be the last and everyone around us is our brother and sister and we need each other.

—Rabbi Matthew S. Kent

http://peyoteway.org/


----------



## ambush80

Artfuldodger said:


> It helps these folks:
> 
> Peyote is a spiritual medicine. It can bring us in touch with the God within us, our Heavenly Father and our Earthly Mother. Peyote puts us in balance again with the Earth underneath our feet... Peyote is a plant sacrament. It is a plant teacher. It is a way of life. Our time in these bodies is brief. When we eat the Peyote we experience time and eternity, and it is from that vantage that, the next day, we can live our life in a very positive and non-trivial way, realizing that this day could be the last and everyone around us is our brother and sister and we need each other.
> 
> —Rabbi Matthew S. Kent
> 
> http://peyoteway.org/



Tripping once is enough.  After that you can teach yourself to do it without drugs.

Those guys are just having fun and like to get high.  The process by which they latch on to their philosophy is the same for any religion.


----------



## centerpin fan

This forum has been crying out for a good peyote thread for a long time now.


----------



## ambush80

centerpin fan said:


> This forum has been crying out for a good peyote thread for a long time now.



_King James Bible
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat._


----------



## TTom

ambush80 said:


> Tripping once is enough.  After that you can teach yourself to do it without drugs.
> 
> Those guys are just having fun and like to get high.  The process by which they latch on to their philosophy is the same for any religion.



Haven't looked into this group specifically, but the judgement you place that using the plant once is enough strikes me as odd, you wouldn't advise prayer just once, or reading a bible, or any other spiritual practice, since repeating the practice tends to give you something different each time.

I don't doubt that some abuse the sacrament of peyote' to have fun getting high. but to dismiss it as a practice because some abuse it goes against my grain.

I've not done peyote', but I have induced trance through means other than just meditation.


----------



## Artfuldodger

TTom said:


> Haven't looked into this group specifically, but the judgement you place that using the plant once is enough strikes me as odd, you wouldn't advise prayer just once, or reading a bible, or any other spiritual practice, since repeating the practice tends to give you something different each time.
> 
> I don't doubt that some abuse the sacrament of peyote' to have fun getting high. but to dismiss it as a practice because some abuse it goes against my grain.
> 
> I've not done peyote', but I have induced trance through means other than just meditation.




Such as sleep deprivation or starvation?
One of the things hippies in the hippie culture tried to achieve was to eventually quit doing drugs and to get high without drugs. I guess like a natural high and to reach a higher place without the aid of drugs.
I guess the use of peyote or ganja to experience God is just as acceptable as any other avenue. For some people just going into the woods/nature is a way to help experience God.


----------



## ambush80

TTom said:


> Haven't looked into this group specifically, but the judgement you place that using the plant once is enough strikes me as odd, you wouldn't advise prayer just once, or reading a bible, or any other spiritual practice, since repeating the practice tends to give you something different each time.
> 
> I don't doubt that some abuse the sacrament of peyote' to have fun getting high. but to dismiss it as a practice because some abuse it goes against my grain.
> 
> I've not done peyote', but I have induced trance through means other than just meditation.



I've never done peyote either but I've tried other stuff like it.  I dunno.  Those states don't feel like enlightenment.  I prefer to confront my demons with a clear head.


----------



## Israel

Not rarely do I hear presented "why" there is no God. And just about as frequently I may hear "why" God is.
If one were to concede, from either, or both sides, that the nature of their contention is no less their contentions for the very nature of reality they might be able to see the folly of their contentions...and contentiousness.
Is reality? ...might just as well be the question.
Is reality more than what one perceives? Is reality dependent upon the "why" we may ascribe? Is not reality...if it be (more than just a construct of vanity and our perceptions) the very thing that gives us the "why"...and not vice verse?
Why "reality"...we could ask? Or is that notion of reality, again, just a construct, a word, meaningless in its application when dispensed as "all men have their own reality"...therefore nullifying the concept completely?
Just as truth. We may say (or hear), "you have your truth, I have mine", again, making of the notion of truth nothing more than a potentially infinitely diluted and useless word, and by that corrupting the concept.
Truth has such a noble sound though, doesn't it? Who doesn't want to think of themselves as a "truth seeker...a truth speaker"? Who cannot see the folly of the statement "There is no truth"...that self negating and conspicuously irrational phrase.
Now, some might ask, as did Pilate of Jesus then, "what is truth?"
One may also note Jesus had no response to him. For Jesus knows it is not a matter of a word defining what is from one man to another, but the conviction that truth alone uncovers all of a man's questions about what is, and what is not, and the testifying to its nature is far more than mere words.
If a man "has being", and I have yet to meet one that does not believe he does, or at least earnestly contends in word that he does, he immediately places himself thus that "being" has reality.
And if so, he will show whether he even believes himself...or not.
For the being of reality no less assumes the reality of "a" being, not of, dependent, nor ascribable to himself.
We all discover if we are self negating in the outcome.
Let the all being one be true, but every man a liar.


----------



## bullethead

Another conversation between Israel and Israel asking and answering his own questions.


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> Another conversation between Israel and Israel asking and answering his own questions.


A man may have nothing except what he has reasoned within himself. But then, what reason is there?


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Not rarely do I hear presented "why" there is no God. And just about as frequently I may hear "why" God is.
> If one were to concede, from either, or both sides, that the nature of their contention is no less their contentions for the very nature of reality they might be able to see the folly of their contentions...and contentiousness.
> Is reality? ...might just as well be the question.
> Is reality more than what one perceives? Is reality dependent upon the "why" we may ascribe? Is not reality...if it be (more than just a construct of vanity and our perceptions) the very thing that gives us the "why"...and not vice verse?
> Why "reality"...we could ask? Or is that notion of reality, again, just a construct, a word, meaningless in its application when dispensed as "all men have their own reality"...therefore nullifying the concept completely?
> Just as truth. We may say (or hear), "you have your truth, I have mine", again, making of the notion of truth nothing more than a potentially infinitely diluted and useless word, and by that corrupting the concept.
> Truth has such a noble sound though, doesn't it? Who doesn't want to think of themselves as a "truth seeker...a truth speaker"? Who cannot see the folly of the statement "There is no truth"...that self negating and conspicuously irrational phrase.
> Now, some might ask, as did Pilate of Jesus then, "what is truth?"
> One may also note Jesus had no response to him. For Jesus knows it is not a matter of a word defining what is from one man to another, but the conviction that truth alone uncovers all of a man's questions about what is, and what is not, and the testifying to its nature is far more than mere words.
> If a man "has being", and I have yet to meet one that does not believe he does, or at least earnestly contends in word that he does, he immediately places himself thus that "being" has reality.
> And if so, he will show whether he even believes himself...or not.
> For the being of reality no less assumes the reality of "a" being, not of, dependent, nor ascribable to himself.
> We all discover if we are self negating in the outcome.
> Let the all being one be true, but every man a liar.



And that folks, is why atheists celebrate christmas


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> A man may have nothing except what he has reasoned within himself. But then, what reason is there?


That is true but perhaps also false.
I might agree but then what agreement is there?


----------



## bullethead

I wish I could get through a conversation that is not another sermon but you lost me early. 
Everybody knows your feelings about God and Jesus. Do you constantly repeat them in every reply  for our sake or yours?


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> I wish I could get through a conversation that is not another sermon but you lost me early.
> Everybody knows your feelings about God and Jesus. Do you constantly repeat them in every reply  for our sake or yours?


At best, both. At the very least, mine.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> At best, both. At the very least, mine.



Let me share some personal information on my end.
It is that very constant continual inclusion of Jesus and God in EVERY reply that actually drives me away from wanting to learn from and converse with individuals. That goes for both in here and in everyday life. 
I appreciate many of the people in here because of their ability to carry on a conversation without the constant need to ramble off track of the topic at hand in order to tell me again why they need a God or what that God does for them.
For the most part the regulars in here are well aware of others beliefs. I have a very good grasp at who is a believer...who is agnostic...and who doesn't believe in any deity at all. At one time or another nearly all have shared their personal details as to why they have come to their personal beliefs. Most everyone can carry on in depth conversations in this forum without the need to remind everyone else of their personal beliefs and I appreciate the ones that skip the opportunity to insert a sermon or better yet outlandish statement or claim.
Don't get me wrong. I am looking forward to the day that someone makes a claim and then backs it up. I can understand when claims are made...discussed...and then we move on too. I can also appreciate the individuals that hold conversations in here and respect certain guidelines that follow a truly apologetic style and then can go a few floors up and share their sermons and praise among like minded believers in a totally different style than they use in here. That is a talent of sorts.
I am sure I miss a lot of your points because when I reach the part of your post that veers off into the point where you feel the need to insert assertions and share your faith ..I just totally stop reading. I feel duped into getting pulled into a religious rehab under false pretense. 
To me it puts me off instead of wanting to learn more.


----------



## atlashunter

bullethead said:


> Let me share some personal information on my end.
> It is that very constant continual inclusion of Jesus and God in EVERY reply that actually drives me away from wanting to learn from and converse with individuals. That goes for both in here and in everyday life.
> I appreciate many of the people in here because of their ability to carry on a conversation without the constant need to ramble off track of the topic at hand in order to tell me again why they need a God or what that God does for them.
> For the most part the regulars in here are well aware of others beliefs. I have a very good grasp at who is a believer...who is agnostic...and who doesn't believe in any deity at all. At one time or another nearly all have shared their personal details as to why they have come to their personal beliefs. Most everyone can carry on in depth conversations in this forum without the need to remind everyone else of their personal beliefs and I appreciate the ones that skip the opportunity to insert a sermon or better yet outlandish statement or claim.
> Don't get me wrong. I am looking forward to the day that someone makes a claim and then backs it up. I can understand when claims are made...discussed...and then we move on too. I can also appreciate the individuals that hold conversations in here and respect certain guidelines that follow a truly apologetic style and then can go a few floors up and share their sermons and praise among like minded believers in a totally different style than they use in here. That is a talent of sorts.
> I am sure I miss a lot of your points because when I reach the part of your post that veers off into the point where you feel the need to insert assertions and share your faith ..I just totally stop reading. I feel duped into getting pulled into a religious rehab under false pretense.
> To me it puts me off instead of wanting to learn more.



I stopped reading them a long time ago. Besides the cryptic writing style if the guy can't get his point across in a post that doesn't take any more than a couple minutes to read it's not worth my time.


----------



## Israel

Pointless! 
Yes...that's it.
All of creation is pointless, but you expect (a) man to have a point.
Do you understand at all the concept of an unjust balance?


----------



## hobbs27

I heard the Gospel preached through a man, but if there weren't spiritual interactions between God and myself I would be a skeptic and not a believer.

 I don't believe because someone told me to. I don't believe because I was raised in a church. I believe because God made me believe....I suspect this is the only way anyone can truly believe, and until God makes believers of skeptics all I can do is share my experiences, pray for you, and correct some of you when you get scripture or history wrong.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> I believe because God made me believe....



So much for free will.


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> So much for free will.



Yeah that's true, unless I knew but rejected anyway...I honestly don't know, and really don't care if there is free will or not. I don't understand the big deal about it, but others don't understand the big deal about covenant eschatology in which I study almost endlessly.


----------



## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> but others don't understand the big deal about covenant eschatology in which I study almost endlessly.



Your avatar gave it away. 

Are you hoping 'end of days' is soon or just trying to determine when?
Why all the study? Wouldn't God just tell you if he wanted you to know?


----------



## Artfuldodger

My only problem with free will is not everyone is given the choice to believe. God doesn't make everyone believe.

Or is that a problem I have with predestination?

Maybe it doesn't matter after all.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Artfuldodger said:


> My only problem with free will is not everyone is given the choice to believe. God doesn't make everyone believe.



Explain, please?


----------



## 660griz

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Explain, please?



Lost tribes...maybe?


----------



## hobbs27

660griz said:


> Your avatar gave it away.
> 
> Are you hoping 'end of days' is soon or just trying to determine when?
> Why all the study? Wouldn't God just tell you if he wanted you to know?



I don't think there is an end of days in our future, but the " end" spoken of in the bible was the end of the Old Covenant.

Why all the study?  I don't know it's a passion I suppose, it's also a form of worship to me. While studying and praying about things to be revealed sometimes the Holy Spirit unleashes Himself on me...I feel like a junky sometimes in need of that fix. And yes, God reveals things to me in His time...through the Holy Spirit. I hope I will be able to do this the rest of my life, enjoying the scriptures and the treasures that are unveiled from time to time.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Pointless!
> Yes...that's it.
> All of creation is pointless, but you expect (a) man to have a point.
> Do you understand at all the concept of an unjust balance?



4 sentences.
No mention of faith.
I think you have gotten the point.

Now if you can work on not having a conversation with yourself in order to pretend someone else said something so you can expound on it you will have a productive day.


----------



## Artfuldodger

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Explain, please?



God doesn't open everyone's eyes. Everyone isn't regenerated or born again. Everyone isn't called.
Some in fact have never even heard of the God of Abraham. Even the one's who have heard the Word must be born again or the Word doesn't make sense. You don't understand and then convert. You are converted and then understand. It's backward logic to us humans.

Adam didn't have a choice. The Jews who crucified Jesus didn't  have a choice. Jesus could never have been their earthly king and so on and so on. Did Jesus fulfill the mission God sent him to do? Did Adam? How could Jesus have done what he did if Adam didn't do what he did? 
God knew Jesus would be needed and already planned everything through Jesus to include Creation.
Now if God has planned everything in the bible to happen a certain way or even if he had foreknowledge, where is my free will?
God's plan didn't stop at the end of writing the Bible. Prophesy and predestination didn't stop at the end of writing the Bible.

If God only select/elects certain ones to be given this choice then what about the others? Predestination is just as right or wrong as free will.

As Christians we don't even know which of our decisions are of ourselves, God, Satan, or just chance.
If I contracted Ebola, whose choice was it? 
Why do Christians get colonoscopies or eat right if our days are numbered?

I'm just going through one of my cycles about these things again.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Artfuldodger said:


> God doesn't open everyone's eyes. Everyone isn't regenerated or born again. Everyone isn't called.
> Some in fact have never even heard of the God of Abraham. Even the one's who have heard the Word must be born again or the Word doesn't make sense. You don't understand and then convert. You are converted and then understand. It's backward logic to us humans.
> 
> Adam didn't have a choice. The Jews who crucified Jesus didn't  have a choice. Jesus could never have been their earthly king and so on and so on. Did Jesus fulfill the mission God sent him to do? Did Adam? How could Jesus have done what he did if Adam didn't do what he did?
> God knew Jesus would be needed and already planned everything through Jesus to include Creation.
> Now if God has planned everything in the bible to happen a certain way or even if he had foreknowledge, where is my free will?
> God's plan didn't stop at the end of writing the Bible. Prophesy and predestination didn't stop at the end of writing the Bible.
> 
> If God only select/elects certain ones to be given this choice then what about the others? Predestination is just as right or wrong as free will.
> 
> As Christians we don't even know which of our decisions are of ourselves, God, Satan, or just chance.
> If I contracted Ebola, whose choice was it?
> Why do Christians get colonoscopies or eat right if our days are numbered?
> 
> I'm just going through one of my cycles about these things again.



No worries. I was more curious about the play between a few of the choice words. 



Artfuldodger said:


> *My only problem with free will is not everyone is given the choice to believe.* God doesn't make everyone believe.



So you're saying that because certain people may not have been given all of the choices in their lives to make for themselves that free will doesn't exist? 

Because Adam had to do X, and because Jesus had to be sent to save us, in order to fulfill God's plan that free will could, theoretically, exist for no one? 

Just trying to understand what you said; not argue.


----------



## Artfuldodger

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> No worries. I was more curious about the play between a few of the choice words.
> 
> So you're saying that because certain people may not have been given all of the choices in their lives to make for themselves that free will doesn't exist?
> 
> Because Adam had to do X, and because Jesus had to be sent to save us, in order to fulfill God's plan that free will could, theoretically, exist for no one?
> 
> Just trying to understand what you said; not argue.



I just find it strange that God would give me free will and not Adam and Jesus.
How could Adam have the free will to not sin if the plan to send Jesus was already the Word? God's plan to send Jesus was before creation. 
Jesus was never sent to be King. Even he knew what he was sent to do. The Jews had no choice but to fulfill prophesy. 
How could Jesus have free will if he was God? He had to do the will of his Father and not his will. Even if only 1/3 of the Trinity, he had to do the will of God. Even if he was God incarnated as a human he had to do the will of God. Even if he was 100% God and 100% human he had to do the will of God. God would not let one man or a whole nation thwart his plan. Not even the man Jesus, if he is God's adopted son.
Everything was pre determined by God including the whole Old Testament which was provided to show we needed Jesus. All of the blood lines, our blood lines, when we will be born, when we will die, and who will become Christians.
Even when the end of time will be. Now if God created everything and orchestrated the whole Old Testament time period just to show us we couldn't save ourselves.
If he already knew before time when time would end.
It leaves very little of me or for me in the form of freewill as that could change God's plan.
Suppose Satan hadn't rebelled, Adam hadn't sinned, the Jews didn't crucify Jesus, or Jesus just decided to do his will?

Even with all of this said, it is possible that I have some free will and some predestination. Maybe God has a Plan B, and a Plan C. Jesus didn't get to be the earthly king God sent him to be  so he's going to use his Plan B and send him down again. Plan B will offer salvation to the Jews, possibly. Maybe God changes his plan as we change ours. If I drink and drive God takes over the wheel and steers me home as an example. Prayers answered as examples of God changing his plan to accommodate us. Man influencing God.  

Maybe God just lets some things happen by chance like evolution, who gets sick, the Grand Canyon, who gets well, and what I'll eat for Supper.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Artfuldodger said:


> I just find it strange that God would give me free will and not Adam and Jesus.
> How could Adam have the free will to not sin if the plan to send Jesus was already the Word? God's plan to send Jesus was before creation.
> Jesus was never sent to be King. Even he knew what he was sent to do. The Jews had no choice but to fulfill prophesy.
> How could Jesus have free will if he was God? He had to do the will of his Father and not his will. Even if only 1/3 of the Trinity, he had to do the will of God. Even if he was God incarnated as a human he had to do the will of God. Even if he was 100% God and 100% human he had to do the will of God. God would not let one man or a whole nation thwart his plan. Not even the man Jesus, if he is God's adopted son.
> Everything was pre determined by God including the whole Old Testament which was provided to show we needed Jesus. All of the blood lines, our blood lines, when we will be born, when we will die, and who will become Christians.
> Even when the end of time will be. Now if God created everything and orchestrated the whole Old Testament time period just to show us we couldn't save ourselves.
> If he already knew before time when time would end.
> It leaves very little of me or for me in the form of freewill as that could change God's plan.
> Suppose Satan hadn't rebelled, Adam hadn't sinned, the Jews didn't crucify Jesus, or Jesus just decided to do his will?
> 
> Even with all of this said, it is possible that I have some free will and some predestination. Maybe God has a Plan B, and a Plan C. Jesus didn't get to be the earthly king God wanted him to so he's going to use his Plan B and send him down again. Plan B will offer salvation to the Jews, possibly.
> 
> Maybe God just lets some things happen by chance like evolution, who gets sick, the Grand Canyon, who gets well, and what I'll eat for Supper.



It could all be based on probability, too. Perhaps there were contingencies for each choice to help realign the decisions with the goal. 

Personally, I don't know. I feel like I have free will, and that's all that matters to me. If someone were to tell me that I didn't, I'd ask them to prove it.


----------



## drippin' rock

Artfuldodger said:


> I just find it strange that God would give me free will and not Adam and Jesus.
> How could Adam have the free will to not sin if the plan to send Jesus was already the Word? God's plan to send Jesus was before creation.
> Jesus was never sent to be King. Even he knew what he was sent to do. The Jews had no choice but to fulfill prophesy.
> How could Jesus have free will if he was God? He had to do the will of his Father and not his will. Even if only 1/3 of the Trinity, he had to do the will of God. Even if he was God incarnated as a human he had to do the will of God. Even if he was 100% God and 100% human he had to do the will of God. God would not let one man or a whole nation thwart his plan. Not even the man Jesus, if he is God's adopted son.
> Everything was pre determined by God including the whole Old Testament which was provided to show we needed Jesus. All of the blood lines, our blood lines, when we will be born, when we will die, and who will become Christians.
> Even when the end of time will be. Now if God created everything and orchestrated the whole Old Testament time period just to show us we couldn't save ourselves.
> If he already knew before time when time would end.
> It leaves very little of me or for me in the form of freewill as that could change God's plan.
> Suppose Satan hadn't rebelled, Adam hadn't sinned, the Jews didn't crucify Jesus, or Jesus just decided to do his will?
> 
> Even with all of this said, it is possible that I have some free will and some predestination. Maybe God has a Plan B, and a Plan C. Jesus didn't get to be the earthly king God sent him to be  so he's going to use his Plan B and send him down again. Plan B will offer salvation to the Jews, possibly. Maybe God changes his plan as we change ours. If I drink and drive God takes over the wheel and steers me home as an example. Prayers answered as examples of God changing his plan to accommodate us. Man influencing God.
> 
> Maybe God just lets some things happen by chance like evolution, who gets sick, the Grand Canyon, who gets well, and what I'll eat for Supper.


I don't see the need for mental gymnastics like this to explain a belief system.


----------



## Israel

drippin' rock said:


> I don't see the need for mental gymnastics like this to explain a belief system.


What is "needed"...then?


----------



## drippin' rock

Israel said:


> What is "needed"...then?



I met a self professed apologist recently.  He said if he was going to believe he needed to understand the facts so he could explain his position to his really smart atheist friends. Seems backwards to me. plus, when I asked his position on topics like the flood, all he could say was " like, I haven't got that far yet bro."

Another antidote- and I'll more than likely butcher the telling...... A Tribe in the Amazon, missionaries go down to spread the gospel. This tribe listens to stories of Jesus and asks if the missionaries know this man. Of course they answer no. The tribe asks if their fathers new this man. They answer no, Jesus actually lived 2000 years ago.  The tribe is unimpressed. They apparently only believe what they can see.  Silly heathens.


----------



## drippin' rock

Israel said:


> What is "needed"...then?



I should have said if a belief system takes this level of mental gymnastics it's not worth believing.


----------



## atlashunter

Israel said:


> Pointless!
> Yes...that's it.
> All of creation is pointless, but you expect (a) man to have a point.
> Do you understand at all the concept of an unjust balance?


----------



## atlashunter

hobbs27 said:


> I heard the Gospel preached through a man, but if there weren't spiritual interactions between God and myself I would be a skeptic and not a believer.
> 
> I don't believe because someone told me to. I don't believe because I was raised in a church. I believe because God made me believe....I suspect this is the only way anyone can truly believe, and until God makes believers of skeptics all I can do is share my experiences, pray for you, and correct some of you when you get scripture or history wrong.



Yeah that much better explains the distribution of religions around the world than the notion people just believe what they were taught as children to believe.


----------



## atlashunter

Artfuldodger said:


> I just find it strange that God would give me free will and not Adam and Jesus.
> How could Adam have the free will to not sin if the plan to send Jesus was already the Word? God's plan to send Jesus was before creation.
> Jesus was never sent to be King. Even he knew what he was sent to do. The Jews had no choice but to fulfill prophesy.
> How could Jesus have free will if he was God? He had to do the will of his Father and not his will. Even if only 1/3 of the Trinity, he had to do the will of God. Even if he was God incarnated as a human he had to do the will of God. Even if he was 100% God and 100% human he had to do the will of God. God would not let one man or a whole nation thwart his plan. Not even the man Jesus, if he is God's adopted son.
> Everything was pre determined by God including the whole Old Testament which was provided to show we needed Jesus. All of the blood lines, our blood lines, when we will be born, when we will die, and who will become Christians.
> Even when the end of time will be. Now if God created everything and orchestrated the whole Old Testament time period just to show us we couldn't save ourselves.
> If he already knew before time when time would end.
> It leaves very little of me or for me in the form of freewill as that could change God's plan.
> Suppose Satan hadn't rebelled, Adam hadn't sinned, the Jews didn't crucify Jesus, or Jesus just decided to do his will?
> 
> Even with all of this said, it is possible that I have some free will and some predestination. Maybe God has a Plan B, and a Plan C. Jesus didn't get to be the earthly king God sent him to be  so he's going to use his Plan B and send him down again. Plan B will offer salvation to the Jews, possibly. Maybe God changes his plan as we change ours. If I drink and drive God takes over the wheel and steers me home as an example. Prayers answered as examples of God changing his plan to accommodate us. Man influencing God.
> 
> Maybe God just lets some things happen by chance like evolution, who gets sick, the Grand Canyon, who gets well, and what I'll eat for Supper.



Maybe it's a bunch of stories that were fabricated by different people with different messages which were later cobbled together.


----------



## atlashunter

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> It could all be based on probability, too. Perhaps there were contingencies for each choice to help realign the decisions with the goal.
> 
> Personally, I don't know. I feel like I have free will, and that's all that matters to me. If someone were to tell me that I didn't, I'd ask them to prove it.



I don't know either. Have you listened to the Sam Harris talk on free will?


----------



## Artfuldodger

I've noticed the great free will vs predestination debate isn't just something believers in a God discuss. Some Atheist don't believe in free will either.
I guess I'm stuck in the middle. Kinda hard believing God lets me decide on some things and not others though. It seems like my choices would upset his plan. 
I was thinking he already had one made. Something about being the alpha and omega. Maybe he just lets me think I'm in control.


----------



## atlashunter

Artfuldodger said:


> I've noticed the great free will vs predestination debate isn't just something believers in a God discuss. Some Atheist don't believe in free will either.
> I guess I'm stuck in the middle. Kinda hard believing God lets me decide on some things and not others though. It seems like my choices would upset his plan.
> I was thinking he already had one made. Something about being the alpha and omega. Maybe he just lets me think I'm in control.



Heard an interesting argument put forward the other day in a debate by Dan Barker. He said god himself could not have free will if he is omniscient because he would already know every thought he would have and every choice he would make.


----------



## hobbs27

atlashunter said:


> Yeah that much better explains the distribution of religions around the world than the notion people just believe what they were taught as children to believe.



I'm sorry. I didn't realize distribution of religions around the world was the subject. There's a lot covered on that in the Bible I could go over if you like?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

atlashunter said:


> I don't know either. Have you listened to the Sam Harris talk on free will?



No, I haven't. Not yet anyway.


----------



## Artfuldodger

atlashunter said:


> Heard an interesting argument put forward the other day in a debate by Dan Barker. He said god himself could not have free will if he is omniscient because he would already know every thought he would have and every choice he would make.



Exactly, he already knows how and when it will happen. If he makes changes then he would have already known of his changes. Therefore God can't change. Now if God doesn't have the free will to change his own plan, how can I have the free will to change God's plan or even his foreknowledge. 
Even if it's God's foreknowledge and not his manipulation, nothing can vary from his foreknowledge. If nothing can vary then there's no free will.

I hope it doesn't work that way. Maybe God working out of time takes the logic out of it. Maybe God does change as we change. I can't see it. Most Christians don't even try to see it. The free will believers that is. Election/predestination follows the Bible more closely. I can understand the logic of their belief. Until salvation comes into play. There is no logic of election/predestination for God granting salvation to only certain people. 
But then again if he already knows,.....isn't that the same as causing?
Causing or knowing still doesn't allow change. One can't accept Jesus if God already knew they won't. You could preach to them until you are blue in the face. Election believers know this. Free will believers are .........Confused?

What about randomness? Can things just happen? Can I just catch the flu because of randomness? Can I die from the flu because of randomness? Can my cure from the flu be random?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Artfuldodger said:


> Exactly, he already knows how and when it will happen. If he makes changes then he would have already known of his changes. Therefore God can't change. Now if God doesn't have the free will to change his own plan, how can I have the free will to change God's plan or even his foreknowledge.
> Even if it's God's foreknowledge and not his manipulation, nothing can vary from his foreknowledge. If nothing can vary then there's no free will.
> 
> I hope it doesn't work that way. Maybe God working out of time takes the logic out of it. Maybe God does change as we change. I can't see it. Most Christians don't even try to see it. The free will believers that is. Election/predestination follows the Bible more closely. I can understand the logic of their belief. Until salvation comes into play. There is no logic of election/predestination for God granting salvation to only certain people.
> But then again if he already knows,.....isn't that the same as causing?
> Causing or knowing still doesn't allow change. One can't accept Jesus if God already knew they won't. You could preach to them until you are blue in the face. Election believers know this. Free will believers are .........Confused?
> 
> What about randomness? Can things just happen? Can I just catch the flu because of randomness? Can I die from the flu because of randomness? Can my cure from the flu be random?



That's only one example of the double speak that results in paradoxes with Him. 

My favorite was the one about Him creating a rock big enough that he couldn't lift it Himself. That's the one that got me really thinking in my youth, especially when a lot of my friends just jumped in with, "Of course He can, He's God. He can do anything, even make himself unable to lift that rock." 

Combined with the other inconsistencies, improbabilities, and derivative inclusions of stories from other religions and it made me step completely out of my religion and embrace faith, but then I questioned what it was I had faith in. 

For me I went from unquestioning religious to skeptically faithful, to widely spiritual until now I've arrived at complete agnostic with a healthy skepticism of all, but rejection of none as rejection should be based on evidence as solid as acceptance. 

God, whomever and whatever It is, exists in a super-state for me, much like subatomic particles do for quantum mechanics. It's both yes, and no, considering we're all using blindness to make assertions, and the more certainty we try to bring to one attribute of that existence the more uncertainty we introduce to every other, which is interesting for an "absolute" construct.


----------



## Israel

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> That's only one example of the double speak that results in paradoxes with Him.
> 
> My favorite was the one about Him creating a rock big enough that he couldn't lift it Himself. That's the one that got me really thinking in my youth, especially when a lot of my friends just jumped in with, "Of course He can, He's God. He can do anything, even make himself unable to lift that rock."
> 
> Combined with the other inconsistencies, improbabilities, and derivative inclusions of stories from other religions and it made me step completely out of my religion and embrace faith, but then I questioned what it was I had faith in.
> 
> For me I went from unquestioning religious to skeptically faithful, to widely spiritual until now I've arrived at complete agnostic with a healthy skepticism of all, but rejection of none as rejection should be based on evidence as solid as acceptance.
> 
> God, whomever and whatever It is, exists in a super-state for me, much like subatomic particles do for quantum mechanics. It's both yes, and no, considering we're all using blindness to make assertions, and the more certainty we try to bring to one attribute of that existence the more uncertainty we introduce to every other, which is interesting for an "absolute" construct.


I believe I understand what you are saying. Especially the highlighted areas.
If we can, or actually, even if we can't accept that God exists in "another state" or superstate as you describe, we can at least apply (if it be applicable...but let us assume) the notion that knowing all, leads to a seeming place of contradiction...or paradox.
Why do we then assume this and apply this to "a" god...but not us?
(yes, the concept of the unjust balance is quite present)
If one assumes that "knowing all" leads to the absence of free will, why would it not be just as consistent to say that as one progresses in the gaining of knowledge...one also approaches the same?
If a "god" is so limited in perfect knowledge to having "no" free will...any progress from unknowing to knowing anything, (and increase) will also only yield a decrease in whatever measure to man, in his "free will".
But, we don't seem to assume that for ourselves...do we? For the most part, I would hazard to guess that amongst many the concept of advancing in knowledge has an equivalent notion of advancing in liberty.
Either the assumption is true, and we restrict ourselves further in every new thing known, or even if the assumption is true, it is at best only a calculation able to be made by men knowing less than all, and using their poor mathematics to describe, or ascribe, a limitation to the one you perceive in the "super-state".
I see the yes and no of it...


----------



## atlashunter

Artfuldodger said:


> Exactly, he already knows how and when it will happen. If he makes changes then he would have already known of his changes. Therefore God can't change. Now if God doesn't have the free will to change his own plan, how can I have the free will to change God's plan or even his foreknowledge.
> Even if it's God's foreknowledge and not his manipulation, nothing can vary from his foreknowledge. If nothing can vary then there's no free will.
> 
> I hope it doesn't work that way. Maybe God working out of time takes the logic out of it. Maybe God does change as we change. I can't see it. Most Christians don't even try to see it. The free will believers that is. Election/predestination follows the Bible more closely. I can understand the logic of their belief. Until salvation comes into play. There is no logic of election/predestination for God granting salvation to only certain people.
> But then again if he already knows,.....isn't that the same as causing?
> Causing or knowing still doesn't allow change. One can't accept Jesus if God already knew they won't. You could preach to them until you are blue in the face. Election believers know this. Free will believers are .........Confused?
> 
> What about randomness? Can things just happen? Can I just catch the flu because of randomness? Can I die from the flu because of randomness? Can my cure from the flu be random?



Working outside of time never made sense to me either. Time is just the label we have placed on a sequence of events. We have time within the context of our own universe but if there is a sequence of events outside of our universe that would still be time. A timeless god would be a static thoughtless and actionless god.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> How do you know you have free will, rather than the illusion of it?
> 
> I find this last part very, very interesting being posted by a man with the avatar you do, but maybe you're just acknowledging the logical conclusion of the circumstances, rather than exposing your feelings on it. Devil's advocate, so to say.
> 
> But then I ask, do you believe that God knows us all before we are born? What, if any, are the limits of that knowledge, and how does that play with omniscience? To be omniscient, you have to be _all_-knowing, not some knowing. Kind of like asking if he can make a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift it. Answer either affirmatively and you invalidate claims to being all-powerful.
> 
> Free will is a constant variable, an X that can never be solved for until the decision is made. You can plan on contingencies and play the odds of likely outcomes, but that's rolling the dice, and not to be confused with omniscience.



Stripe.  Sorry so late getting back to you over this.  Been busy.



> How do you know you have free will, rather than the illusion of it?



How deep do you want to go?  Descartes said I doubt therefore I exist.  I don't want to get that philosophically deep.  It's boring, so I will just go with what I stated earlier.  It's what I observe and just so happens to align with scripture.



> I find this last part very, very interesting being posted by a man with the avatar you do, but maybe you're just acknowledging the logical conclusion of the circumstances, rather than exposing your feelings on it. Devil's advocate, so to say.



That's all I was doing; acknowledging the logical conclusion.



> But then I ask, do you believe that God knows us all before we are born? What, if any, are the limits of that knowledge, and how does that play with omniscience? To be omniscient, you have to be _all_-knowing, not some knowing. Kind of like asking if he can make a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift it. Answer either affirmatively and you invalidate claims to being all-powerful.



Know us before we are born?  Well scripture certainly states that unequivocally, so yes I hold that to be true.

What are the limits and how does that work with omniscience?  I have no idea.  One would have to have omniscience to know that I would think.

To your last point, that's a toughie.  All knowing and all powerful?  Yes to both, God does have his limitations, such as God cannot contradict himself.  God cannot lie.  Does this negate his omnipotence and omniscience?  No, not at all at least as far as I can see.  More to your point, and another limitation of God, God cannot make the illogical logical.  To make a stone so big he can't lift it is an illogical question, akin to asking can God make square circles.  It makes no sense.  Both examples violate the law of non contradiction.



> Free will is a constant variable, an X that can never be solved for until the decision is made. You can plan on contingencies and play the odds of likely outcomes, but that's rolling the dice, and not to be confused with omniscience.



Not really, given an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient being.  Think about it.  God may call me to go evangelize inner city Atlanta because there are a lot of lost people there.  For some reason I decide to end it all, put a gun to my head and I'm gone.  He then calls another.  My free will only alters WHO goes to evangelize them.  It doesn't alter the outcome.  

A scientist is conducting an experiment in an open system (but only open to him) to observe how certain constant variables behave under various conditions.  He already knows how each and every variable will behave under every given condition because he knows the limitations of the variables and the framework governing the system.  However the variables chose to behave, their behavior can't escape the framework nor the system, but yet again they are free to behave as they wish.

Here's the thing I find truly amazing.  Ask yourself WHY anyone would want to design such a system, and the only plausible answer I come up with is to test the variables.  But WHY test them?   If you are going to stress test something it only means that it's because you have a higher purpose for using it in the future, which is again something scripture alludes to.  

Also as a side note, it has always struck me as both peculiar and fascinating that as soon as Adam and Eve rebelled and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, God IMMEDIATELY banned them from the Garden specifically so they could not eat of the Tree of Life and become "as Us"

Had they become "as Us" , in addition to recently immoral I think that would have jeopardized the system's framework, and/or the integrity of the system itself, hence the swift negation of that option.  Orrrr maybe not.  I need to think about that a bit more, but it's an intriguing proposition for me as a believer.


----------



## atlashunter

SemperFiDawg said:


> More to your point, and another limitation of God, God cannot make the illogical logical.  To make a stone so big he can't lift it is an illogical question, akin to asking can God make square circles.  It makes no sense.  Both examples violate the law of non contradiction.



I can make something too heavy for me to lift. Nothing illogical about it.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I agree, at least with earthly relationships.
> 
> Everything I've heard, or read, or been told, about God suggests that there is no sin that He can't wash away with a repentant heart.
> 
> We could argue the definition of repentance all we want, but that still doesn't matter to God. His definition, if there is one, is His.
> 
> But again, that goes back to a few key points.
> 
> 1) You don't know that your kid will break that vase, any more than you know your spouse will cheat. God, supposedly, knows all of that right now.
> 
> 2) We all have our house rules, some are more absolute than others, but let's draw an analogy for a second. Let's say that I invite you to my house for dinner. I tell you that I love my dog more than anything else, and command you not to kill it. For whatever reason, you decide that killing my dog is the thing to do and go through with it, after I've clearly proscribed it to you in our initial social contract. I don't know about you, but no matter how many times you ask for my forgiveness, or how badly your heart aches by being left out in the cold by me, but you will never, ever again be allowed to set foot in my house, and I will place a restraining order against you so I never have to see you or speak to you again. Sure, you can chalk that up to me being human, whereas God would forgive because He is divine, but I come back to the problem that if there are no consequences for breaking the rules, if you have the right "heart", then there is no point to the rules. You should be able to identify the right hearts without the testing.
> 
> 3) The whole thing reeks of a test that some are doomed to fail by predetermination, i.e. they were born into evil hearts. Others are doomed to fail by their gifts, such as myself, if I am wrong in my skepticism on faith. Still others are doomed to failure because they believed, but not in the right God. Others are born to succeed because they are born with the open mind to take things at face value and were lucky enough to be shown the correct God either through nature, discovering it for themselves, or nurture, in that their family and friends brought them to the fold. The worst part of it is that there's way to study for this test. Sure, some could snarkily point to the Bible and say, "Right there's your manual..." But how do you know that it is the right one amongst the myriad texts out there, each of which have their own claims, of same substantive value, to being the truth. How can one ever hope to separate the wheat from the chaff in one lifetime, in order to come proper to the deity upon their death? Or to be reincarnated with an improved station as opposed to punishment of lower station for not getting it right.
> 
> It seems unimaginably cruel, to me as a human, for a deity to hide behind a veil of mystery, demand faith, and punish doubt, without giving the majority of their flock an honest go at getting it right. But then there's that whole forgiveness thing, again, which says that I might yet be okay. I like the idea of being okay, but it invalidates everything that came before it if I get to walk in with people of faith, after having been a skeptic most of my life, and rarely having lived the straight and narrow.




I'm glad I didn't answer this yet, because I heard a podcast today that addresses 90% of this and does so in a way much more interestingly than I could ever hope to.  In fact I thought of you when I heard it, because it SPECIFICALLY deals with this and many other scientific subjects that I thought you would find very informative.  
(I can't figure out how to link or imbed the podcast so I provided alternate links below.)

It's a Q&A session with John Lennox hosted at some college.  Lennox is an Oxford mathematician, who is well verse in the sciences.  Lennox is in my opinion the most succinct and honest voice out there today that can viscerally explain how Orthodox Christianity and Science interface.
Trust me.  You won't be disappointed by this, and I guarantee that you will find it both witty and scientifically fascinating.  Whether you agree or not I don't know, but from what little I know of you, I think it will open your eyes to entirely new possibilities and a new understanding of old controversies.  It did for me.  Anyway, here's the link an long with a similar link for another Q&A  with Lennox and finally a link to a conversation between Lennox and Dawkins that is priceless if for no other reason than for Dawkins'es humor exhibited in the last 3:30 minutes of the conversation.

http://cssrs14.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/2014-08-22-questiontimewithjohnlennox.mp3

http://www.buzzsprout.com/21885/201663-professor-john-lennox-q-a

http://apologetics315.s3.amazonaws.com/debate/discussion-dawkins-lennox.mp3


----------



## SemperFiDawg

atlashunter said:


> I can make something too heavy for me to lift. Nothing illogical about it.



Omnipotent much?


----------



## SemperFiDawg

hobbs27 said:


> I heard the Gospel preached through a man, but if there weren't spiritual interactions between God and myself I would be a skeptic and not a believer.
> 
> I don't believe because someone told me to. I don't believe because I was raised in a church. I believe because God made me believe....I suspect this is the only way anyone can truly believe, and until God makes believers of skeptics all I can do is share my experiences, pray for you, and correct some of you when you get scripture or history wrong.






> hobbs27 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I heard the Gospel preached through a man, but if there weren't spiritual interactions between God and myself I would be a skeptic and not a believer.
> 
> I don't believe because someone told me to. I don't believe because I was raised in a church. I believe because God made me believe....I suspect this is the only way anyone can truly believe, and until God makes believers of skeptics all I can do is share my experiences, pray for you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Whoa Hoss!!!  You can stop right there before you hurt someone with that thang.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## atlashunter

SemperFiDawg said:


> Omnipotent much?



If someone can make something heavier than they can lift does that make them omnipotent?


----------



## SemperFiDawg

atlashunter said:


> If someone can make something heavier than they can lift does that make them omnipotent?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

I'm replying to your links as I listen to them, so this is likely to be a very long and difficult to follow post, unless you're listening in one tab and reading in another.

I started with this one, and realized it was 50 some odd minutes after I got going. 
http://cssrs14.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/2014-08-22-questiontimewithjohnlennox.mp3

Given my chosen method of response, I think this one will be enough to get us going on something substantive. 

I like his admittance of his inability to explain things in this format, but pointing skeptics back to their own research, and research paths, will likely lead to the same conclusions they've already reached. 

The invention of mathematics doesn't change that 1 = 1. We could call it penguin, but it would still be of one quantity. 

I'd be curious to see him explain his definition of atheists. Mainly, to see if it lines up with what others, at least as far as connotation seems to suggest, on the boards here imply in that if you're not a full believer then you are an "atheist" even if you don't make the assertion of 0 god or gods. They don't seem to recognize the distinction, for whatever reason, between an agnostic and an atheist. 

"We can learn about God by looking at ourselves." A statement based on the singularly sourced viewpoint that we are made in God's image. More important than the sun? Than the Andromeda galaxy? It seems like the goal here is glad-handing and stroking the ego of those who believe, or want to believe, with the goal of conversion via confirmation bias. We all want to be special. We all want to be important. The bell curve of humanity, however, shows, not suggests, that a great many of us are mediocre at best, and a very few of us are truly great. Sure, you can shift the topic of the question, and you may slide to the upper group and very well be exceptional. The notion that you are truly exceptional, across the board, is a bald-faced platitude. And I personally find his claims that we are even close to being God-like to be utterly blasphemous and in direct violation of the very First Commandment. "I am the Lord, thy God, thou shall have no strange Gods before me." One of the core complaints the faithful bring against atheists and other non-believers is that we hold science up to be a false God and are thus blasphemous, where this guy just told us to supplant science with ourselves. His tone is agreeable, but his message, thus far, is egotistical from the standpoint of humanity. 

Because the Russians, or the Germans, couldn't do something it's impossible? I know you wanted to avoid Descartes, but he's the inspiration for my determination of self, and humanity's, worth. He said, "I think, therefore I am." It's simple, and at least as valuable to philosophy and morality as religion are. You can argue philosophy, you can argue religion, but you can't argue existence. I changed it a little to more succinctly express myself, but it's, "I am, therefore I have value." Since every human can say this then we are all of equal value, at least in my eyes. No devaluation based on belief in a lesser God than mine, or yours. The prime devaluation I ascribe to others comes from violation of this core tenet, but I also hesitate to call it existentialism, although I do agree with Kierkegaard in that each person is responsible for assigning their own values and their own lives. They may come up with a different value for X, the value of their lives, but they would be hard-up to prove, or even suggest, that their value is more than any other human's of equal condition. 

I do think that the message he's bringing, "You're awesome because God created you in His image, and he's awesome," is simply trying to adjust the same message that's been used throughout history to modern times. In other words, in previous generations humility and conservative morality was to be praised, so you could appeal to those qualities and win converts, or keep the congregation as it were. In the modern era, however, you have a society that's convinced of their own importance, and look at Atlanta traffic in relation to how they treat other motorists if you want proof, so you have to play the hand you're dealt. If you try telling the person who just, knowingly, raced down an ending lane to beat out 4 other people to save 12 seconds on their commute that they should be more humble, you're far more likely to get a nod right now, but a scoff as soon as they're out the door. They're convinced of their own self-importance, one that's greater than any other being's. But if you tell them that they're awesome, and that they're created in God's image, you confirm the bias they've already displayed, creating a feedback loop of "positive" thinking, positive to their starting viewpoint anyway, and you change the outcome. It's like selling cars. You get the person started answering yes to your questions, so that when it comes time that they would originally say no, they feel guilty for it because it violates the precepts of the relationship. "Beautiful day today, isn't it?" It's an implied yes/no question, and unless it's truly horrible, the answer will most likely be yes. Adjusted for weather, "Man, it's raining cats and dogs out here, isn't it? Let me get you an umbrella."

I'm not saying he's a car salesman, or a slimeball. I'm just saying that he's changing tactics and playing to his audience. 

I take the comparison he ran with, that astrology and astronomy are equally "logical" as specious. Astronomy is the study of the mechanics of the universe. Astrology is a hoodoo "science" much like Feng Shui. It takes something observable, makes unsubstantiated claims about them, with no observable effect. Further, anything attributed to it is singularly anecdotal, never being able to rise above the placebo effect. Did moving that furniture here, or having your "stars read", really land you that job or was it the confidence you gave yourself by believing that they would? There's no way to prove any of it. 

Because he doesn't know anyone in Biology that is addressing the question of origins, then it's not happening? Further, he never clarified the sigma levels that are used to confirm theories. He played on the uncertainty in real world experiences, suggested by the person asking the question, and never corrected them. Science knows that you can't lock down all variables in a real-world system. Any real scientist admits this freely. They do make basic assumptions, like in my physics studies where we were told to treat air resistance, or friction, as a constant with a value of X. That allows us to get a very close approximation of the system, not a 100% accurate representation.

I like the idea of learning from everyone and making your own decisions. If we could do that as a society we would be so much better off. 

Atheism running rampant? Horrible mischaracterization, unless, of course, he’s using the same broad definition I mentioned earlier. He did limit it to the world of places of higher education, but even then I believe, based on my own observations, that to be inaccurate and I would challenge him to substantiate it. Sure, I could hit the Googles and come up with something to support my side, but he’s an educated man making assertions; surely he’s done his own research and I’d like to see it. 

I do love the part about worldview matching lifestyle. That’s why I’m such a stickler for Leviticus. How many times have we heard that, “the Bible is true! 100% true.” Only to be followed with exclusions about this verse, that chapter and on, with justifications ranging from it being a matter of interpretation, or the NT wiping away the OT, as we’ve discussed earlier. I fall back on my own experience with things like this, particularly my young adult hood. I was almost 20 years old and a very young, very wet behind the ears, father. I sat in my in-laws mother’s house to a very nice Christmas supper. I already had doubts in my life about faith and religion, but I went along with their customs to support them, because the world doesn’t revolve around me or my viewpoints. At the time, I identified as Catholic because of conformity issues. I didn’t want to upset my family, and I was afraid to admit to myself that I was abandoning a segment of what I had thought was my identity. She, the grandmother, asked me what faith I was because faith was very important to her, and I mean very. When I told her Catholic she almost snarled at me, but checked the motion. I saw the lip start to curl up like Elvis, and I knew that I wasn’t in favor. That was confirmed later when, coming out of another room after having changed my daughter, I overheard her call my daughter the version of “child to unwed parents” I can’t say here, who deserved to burn in Hades with her Catholic heathen father. She said this about her own blood. I don’t fault her for sticking to her beliefs and living her worldview, but I do fault her for thinking that it’s okay to say behind what she thought were closed doors, and not to my face, with my future mother-in-law nodding in agreement. Needless to say I got my daughter out of there and never went back, making it perfectly clear as to why to all. The point being, is that where is the punishment for these children laid out? Exactly right, Deuteronomy 23:2, part of the, supposedly, invalid OT. 

That’s all the time I can spare on this right now, and I’m only up to 13 minutes in the first lecture. You’re right, SFD, I do rather enjoy this.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Israel said:


> I believe I understand what you are saying. Especially the highlighted areas.
> If we can, or actually, even if we can't accept that God exists in "another state" or superstate as you describe, we can at least apply (if it be applicable...but let us assume) the notion that knowing all, leads to a seeming place of contradiction...or paradox.
> Why do we then assume this and apply this to "a" god...but not us?
> (yes, the concept of the unjust balance is quite present)
> If one assumes that "knowing all" leads to the absence of free will, why would it not be just as consistent to say that as one progresses in the gaining of knowledge...one also approaches the same?
> If a "god" is so limited in perfect knowledge to having "no" free will...any progress from unknowing to knowing anything, (and increase) will also only yield a decrease in whatever measure to man, in his "free will".
> But, we don't seem to assume that for ourselves...do we? For the most part, I would hazard to guess that amongst many the concept of advancing in knowledge has an equivalent notion of advancing in liberty.
> Either the assumption is true, and we restrict ourselves further in every new thing known, or even if the assumption is true, it is at best only a calculation able to be made by men knowing less than all, and using their poor mathematics to describe, or ascribe, a limitation to the one you perceive in the "super-state".
> I see the yes and no of it...



Because, no matter what Vin Diesel says, an inch is not a mile and we will never be omniscient as a singular person. I highly doubt it's even possible as a species. 

However, it's the starting point for God. If you accept that He exists, you must also accept that he's all powerful and all knowing. 

The paradoxes are just logical conclusions and constructs of man to try to understand God. It makes me less likely to believe, since paradoxes can't exist in nature, but then again he's supposedly supernatural. Maybe paradoxes are of no consequence to Him. 

It's all speculative, so it's all equally valid, and invalid. Hence, a superstate. Much like Schoedinger's cat, it's not until one can observe that a true identification can occur. Until then it's simultaneously possible, and impossible. Much like the cat being alive/dead until you open the box. The cat knows which it is, but the veil of uncertainty, "the box" prevents anyone else from knowing the truth for certain. 



SemperFiDawg said:


> Stripe.  Sorry so late getting back to you over this.  Been busy.
> 
> How deep do you want to go?  Descartes said I doubt therefore I exist.  I don't want to get that philosophically deep.  It's boring, so I will just go with what I stated earlier.  It's what I observe and just so happens to align with scripture.
> 
> That's all I was doing; acknowledging the logical conclusion.
> 
> Know us before we are born?  Well scripture certainly states that unequivocally, so yes I hold that to be true.
> 
> What are the limits and how does that work with omniscience?  I have no idea.  One would have to have omniscience to know that I would think.
> 
> To your last point, that's a toughie.  All knowing and all powerful?  Yes to both, God does have his limitations, such as God cannot contradict himself.  God cannot lie.  Does this negate his omnipotence and omniscience?  No, not at all at least as far as I can see.  More to your point, and another limitation of God, God cannot make the illogical logical.  To make a stone so big he can't lift it is an illogical question, akin to asking can God make square circles.  It makes no sense.  Both examples violate the law of non contradiction.
> 
> Not really, given an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient being.  Think about it.  God may call me to go evangelize inner city Atlanta because there are a lot of lost people there.  For some reason I decide to end it all, put a gun to my head and I'm gone.  He then calls another.  My free will only alters WHO goes to evangelize them.  It doesn't alter the outcome.
> 
> A scientist is conducting an experiment in an open system (but only open to him) to observe how certain constant variables behave under various conditions.  He already knows how each and every variable will behave under every given condition because he knows the limitations of the variables and the framework governing the system.  However the variables chose to behave, their behavior can't escape the framework nor the system, but yet again they are free to behave as they wish.
> 
> Here's the thing I find truly amazing.  Ask yourself WHY anyone would want to design such a system, and the only plausible answer I come up with is to test the variables.  But WHY test them?   If you are going to stress test something it only means that it's because you have a higher purpose for using it in the future, which is again something scripture alludes to.
> 
> Also as a side note, it has always struck me as both peculiar and fascinating that as soon as Adam and Eve rebelled and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, God IMMEDIATELY banned them from the Garden specifically so they could not eat of the Tree of Life and become "as Us"
> 
> Had they become "as Us" , in addition to recently immoral I think that would have jeopardized the system's framework, and/or the integrity of the system itself, hence the swift negation of that option.  Orrrr maybe not.  I need to think about that a bit more, but it's an intriguing proposition for me as a believer.



I'm open to going as deep as we wish to go. The problem is that time is finite and we all have other things to do. To be perfectly honest, even though it would somewhat handicap our ability to research, unless we allowed cell phones and computers, I would very much like to have a bonfire somewhere to sit down and discuss these in person. Just like Jesus did; well, exchange wine for bourbon for me, please. 

I do like that you're willing to step out of your own views and follow where it goes, even if you choose to leave it there and not believe it. Not that it matters, but that gets high praise from me. 

If God can not contradict himself, then he can't be all-powerful or all-knowing. He would therefore know that we are playing out his plan, that free will is an illusion, yet telling us that we have free will. It doesn't line up. He couldn't, then, create a rock so big that he couldn't lift it, either, since either condition is a limit on his power. 



atlashunter said:


> I can make something too heavy for me to lift. Nothing illogical about it.



You're human, and not presupposed to be all-powerful, at least by any source than yourself.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I'm replying to your links as I listen to them, so this is likely to be a very long and difficult to follow post, unless you're listening in one tab and reading in another.
> 
> I started with this one, and realized it was 50 some odd minutes after I got going.
> http://cssrs14.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/2014-08-22-questiontimewithjohnlennox.mp3
> 
> Given my chosen method of response, I think this one will be enough to get us going on something substantive.
> 
> I like his admittance of his inability to explain things in this format, but pointing skeptics back to their own research, and research paths, will likely lead to the same conclusions they've already reached.
> 
> The invention of mathematics doesn't change that 1 = 1. We could call it penguin, but it would still be of one quantity.
> 
> I'd be curious to see him explain his definition of atheists. Mainly, to see if it lines up with what others, at least as far as connotation seems to suggest, on the boards here imply in that if you're not a full believer then you are an "atheist" even if you don't make the assertion of 0 god or gods. They don't seem to recognize the distinction, for whatever reason, between an agnostic and an atheist.
> 
> "We can learn about God by looking at ourselves." A statement based on the singularly sourced viewpoint that we are made in God's image. More important than the sun? Than the Andromeda galaxy? It seems like the goal here is glad-handing and stroking the ego of those who believe, or want to believe, with the goal of conversion via confirmation bias. We all want to be special. We all want to be important. The bell curve of humanity, however, shows, not suggests, that a great many of us are mediocre at best, and a very few of us are truly great. Sure, you can shift the topic of the question, and you may slide to the upper group and very well be exceptional. The notion that you are truly exceptional, across the board, is a bald-faced platitude. And I personally find his claims that we are even close to being God-like to be utterly blasphemous and in direct violation of the very First Commandment. "I am the Lord, thy God, thou shall have no strange Gods before me." One of the core complaints the faithful bring against atheists and other non-believers is that we hold science up to be a false God and are thus blasphemous, where this guy just told us to supplant science with ourselves. His tone is agreeable, but his message, thus far, is egotistical from the standpoint of humanity.
> 
> Because the Russians, or the Germans, couldn't do something it's impossible? I know you wanted to avoid Descartes, but he's the inspiration for my determination of self, and humanity's, worth. He said, "I think, therefore I am." It's simple, and at least as valuable to philosophy and morality as religion are. You can argue philosophy, you can argue religion, but you can't argue existence. I changed it a little to more succinctly express myself, but it's, "I am, therefore I have value." Since every human can say this then we are all of equal value, at least in my eyes. No devaluation based on belief in a lesser God than mine, or yours. The prime devaluation I ascribe to others comes from violation of this core tenet, but I also hesitate to call it existentialism, although I do agree with Kierkegaard in that each person is responsible for assigning their own values and their own lives. They may come up with a different value for X, the value of their lives, but they would be hard-up to prove, or even suggest, that their value is more than any other human's of equal condition.
> 
> I do think that the message he's bringing, "You're awesome because God created you in His image, and he's awesome," is simply trying to adjust the same message that's been used throughout history to modern times. In other words, in previous generations humility and conservative morality was to be praised, so you could appeal to those qualities and win converts, or keep the congregation as it were. In the modern era, however, you have a society that's convinced of their own importance, and look at Atlanta traffic in relation to how they treat other motorists if you want proof, so you have to play the hand you're dealt. If you try telling the person who just, knowingly, raced down an ending lane to beat out 4 other people to save 12 seconds on their commute that they should be more humble, you're far more likely to get a nod right now, but a scoff as soon as they're out the door. They're convinced of their own self-importance, one that's greater than any other being's. But if you tell them that they're awesome, and that they're created in God's image, you confirm the bias they've already displayed, creating a feedback loop of "positive" thinking, positive to their starting viewpoint anyway, and you change the outcome. It's like selling cars. You get the person started answering yes to your questions, so that when it comes time that they would originally say no, they feel guilty for it because it violates the precepts of the relationship. "Beautiful day today, isn't it?" It's an implied yes/no question, and unless it's truly horrible, the answer will most likely be yes. Adjusted for weather, "Man, it's raining cats and dogs out here, isn't it? Let me get you an umbrella."
> 
> I'm not saying he's a car salesman, or a slimeball. I'm just saying that he's changing tactics and playing to his audience.
> 
> I take the comparison he ran with, that astrology and astronomy are equally "logical" as specious. Astronomy is the study of the mechanics of the universe. Astrology is a hoodoo "science" much like Feng Shui. It takes something observable, makes unsubstantiated claims about them, with no observable effect. Further, anything attributed to it is singularly anecdotal, never being able to rise above the placebo effect. Did moving that furniture here, or having your "stars read", really land you that job or was it the confidence you gave yourself by believing that they would? There's no way to prove any of it.
> 
> Because he doesn't know anyone in Biology that is addressing the question of origins, then it's not happening? Further, he never clarified the sigma levels that are used to confirm theories. He played on the uncertainty in real world experiences, suggested by the person asking the question, and never corrected them. Science knows that you can't lock down all variables in a real-world system. Any real scientist admits this freely. They do make basic assumptions, like in my physics studies where we were told to treat air resistance, or friction, as a constant with a value of X. That allows us to get a very close approximation of the system, not a 100% accurate representation.
> 
> I like the idea of learning from everyone and making your own decisions. If we could do that as a society we would be so much better off.
> 
> Atheism running rampant? Horrible mischaracterization, unless, of course, he’s using the same broad definition I mentioned earlier. He did limit it to the world of places of higher education, but even then I believe, based on my own observations, that to be inaccurate and I would challenge him to substantiate it. Sure, I could hit the Googles and come up with something to support my side, but he’s an educated man making assertions; surely he’s done his own research and I’d like to see it.
> 
> I do love the part about worldview matching lifestyle. That’s why I’m such a stickler for Leviticus. How many times have we heard that, “the Bible is true! 100% true.” Only to be followed with exclusions about this verse, that chapter and on, with justifications ranging from it being a matter of interpretation, or the NT wiping away the OT, as we’ve discussed earlier. I fall back on my own experience with things like this, particularly my young adult hood. I was almost 20 years old and a very young, very wet behind the ears, father. I sat in my in-laws mother’s house to a very nice Christmas supper. I already had doubts in my life about faith and religion, but I went along with their customs to support them, because the world doesn’t revolve around me or my viewpoints. At the time, I identified as Catholic because of conformity issues. I didn’t want to upset my family, and I was afraid to admit to myself that I was abandoning a segment of what I had thought was my identity. She, the grandmother, asked me what faith I was because faith was very important to her, and I mean very. When I told her Catholic she almost snarled at me, but checked the motion. I saw the lip start to curl up like Elvis, and I knew that I wasn’t in favor. That was confirmed later when, coming out of another room after having changed my daughter, I overheard her call my daughter the version of “child to unwed parents” I can’t say here, who deserved to burn in Hades with her Catholic heathen father. She said this about her own blood. I don’t fault her for sticking to her beliefs and living her worldview, but I do fault her for thinking that it’s okay to say behind what she thought were closed doors, and not to my face, with my future mother-in-law nodding in agreement. Needless to say I got my daughter out of there and never went back, making it perfectly clear as to why to all. The point being, is that where is the punishment for these children laid out? Exactly right, Deuteronomy 23:2, part of the, supposedly, invalid OT.
> 
> That’s all the time I can spare on this right now, and I’m only up to 13 minutes in the first lecture. You’re right, SFD, I do rather enjoy this.



Thought you would, regardless of whether you agreed or not.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Thought you would, regardless of whether you agreed or not.



It a change of pace from the normally dismissive tone of the board. Much like politics, people seem to be oriented on proving that X person can fit in Y box so that they can be dismissed and move on to the next topic. 

As soon as I can call you a libtard, repuglican, Christian, or atheist I can disregard all of your viewpoints as invalid and not worth my time, so I can tune you out. 

It's counterproductive and, frankly, pathetic; and yes, I know that I've been guilty of that from time to time. That's why I haven't been posting as much as I once did in all subforums. I'm slowing my roll to try to fight that urge that's been heaped upon society as of late.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Because, no matter what Vin Diesel says, an inch is not a mile and we will never be omniscient as a singular person. I highly doubt it's even possible as a species.
> 
> However, it's the starting point for God. If you accept that He exists, you must also accept that he's all powerful and all knowing.
> 
> The paradoxes are just logical conclusions and constructs of man to try to understand God. It makes me less likely to believe, since paradoxes can't exist in nature, but then again he's supposedly supernatural. Maybe paradoxes are of no consequence to Him.
> 
> It's all speculative, so it's all equally valid, and invalid. Hence, a superstate. Much like Schoedinger's cat, it's not until one can observe that a true identification can occur. Until then it's simultaneously possible, and impossible. Much like the cat being alive/dead until you open the box. The cat knows which it is, but the veil of uncertainty, "the box" prevents anyone else from knowing the truth for certain.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm open to going as deep as we wish to go. The problem is that time is finite and we all have other things to do. To be perfectly honest, even though it would somewhat handicap our ability to research, unless we allowed cell phones and computers, I would very much like to have a bonfire somewhere to sit down and discuss these in person. Just like Jesus did; well, exchange wine for bourbon for me, please.
> 
> I do like that you're willing to step out of your own views and follow where it goes, even if you choose to leave it there and not believe it. Not that it matters, but that gets high praise from me.
> 
> If God can not contradict himself, then he can't be all-powerful or all-knowing. He would therefore know that we are playing out his plan, that free will is an illusion, yet telling us that we have free will. It doesn't line up. He couldn't, then, create a rock so big that he couldn't lift it, either, since either condition is a limit on his power.




Thanks.



> If God can not contradict himself, then he can't be all-powerful or all-knowing.



I suggests that if he could or would contradict himself it would render him impotent to a degree, certainly not omnipotent, however I cannot comprehend how an all powerful and all knowing being could or even would have to contradict himself.  

Take for instance truth, maybe the most powerful force the world has ever known.  If it contradicts itself it ceases to exist, but by it's very definition it cannot.

Again I go back to the problem of the rock.  It's an illogical question.  Not for me as Atlas pointed out: I can make a rock I can't move, but given that we are quantifying it by granting God is an omnipotent being, then within that parameter the question becomes illogical or non-sensical because it breaks the law of non contradiction.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> I suggests that if he could or would contradict himself it would render him impotent to a degree, certainly not omnipotent, however I cannot comprehend how an all powerful and all knowing being could or even would have to contradict himself.
> 
> Take for instance truth, maybe the most powerful force the world has ever known.  If it contradicts itself it ceases to exist, but by it's very definition it cannot.
> 
> Again I go back to the problem of the rock.  It's an illogical question.  Not for me as Atlas pointed out: I can make a rock I can't move, but given that we are quantifying it by granting God is an omnipotent being, then within that parameter the question becomes illogical or non-sensical because it breaks the law of non contradiction.



He wouldn't, at least under normal, natural, circumstances. He created the universe, so goes the tale, so any rock that could be created would also be in the universe, and thus smaller than it. If we place the bounds for the rock at the edge of the universe then he can only create a rock so big, even though he would, in theory still be able to move it. Maybe the limitation is on the physical dimensions of the rock, and not a shortcoming with Himself, but that again, dodges the question, IMO. 

The point of the question isn't really how God would accomplish the feat. It's how the believer rationalizes the contradiction within themselves. It's making one scrutinize the chosen words that characterize the power of God. You could say that he is supremely powerful, and that would be true. He's way more powerful than any other being we could attest to. But when you try to remove all boundaries on power and knowledge, you introduce the certainty of creating paradoxes. Like knowing all, but leaving free will. And creating huge rocks. Or knowing us all before we're born, but still punishing us for the decisions He knows we're going to make anyway. 

It's a bit of a red herring, but it is, in my humble opinion, quite possibly the best red herring, and the most beneficial to a person and thus humanity, in existence. It leads us down a seemingly pointless rabbit hole, but the point of that rabbit hole is to get us to examine the arguments we've bit off on, hook, line, and sinker. 

It's easy to say that God is all-powerful, it's another to follow that assertion to the extreme limits, because there should be no limits on the all-powerful.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> He wouldn't, at least under normal, natural, circumstances. He created the universe, so goes the tale, so any rock that could be created would also be in the universe, and thus smaller than it. If we place the bounds for the rock at the edge of the universe then he can only create a rock so big, even though he would, in theory still be able to move it. Maybe the limitation is on the physical dimensions of the rock, and not a shortcoming with Himself, but that again, dodges the question, IMO.
> 
> The point of the question isn't really how God would accomplish the feat. It's how the believer rationalizes the contradiction within themselves. It's making one scrutinize the chosen words that characterize the power of God. You could say that he is supremely powerful, and that would be true. He's way more powerful than any other being we could attest to. But when you try to remove all boundaries on power and knowledge, you introduce the certainty of creating paradoxes. Like knowing all, but leaving free will. And creating huge rocks. Or knowing us all before we're born, but still punishing us for the decisions He knows we're going to make anyway.
> 
> It's a bit of a red herring, but it is, in my humble opinion, quite possibly the best red herring, and the most beneficial to a person and thus humanity, in existence. It leads us down a seemingly pointless rabbit hole, but the point of that rabbit hole is to get us to examine the arguments we've bit off on, hook, line, and sinker.
> 
> It's easy to say that God is all-powerful, it's another to follow that assertion to the extreme limits, because there should be no limits on the all-powerful.



Sorry Stripe.  I can't follow.  Where you see a paradox or contradiction within a created theoretical question/ framework, I simply see a logically flawed question, but I appreciate you making me think it out and defend it.

Regarding the term "all powerful" I think I carries several if not many different meaning, depending on who you ask, and maybe particularly regarding those within the theological community.

Honestly I think it's like a lot of other huge terms that we use, but in all actuality have very little understanding as to what they truely are such as time, gravity, color, information/data, etc.  Anyway hope you get a chance to listen to the Lennox/Dawkins conversation.  The last 5 minutes or so are worth it.

On a side note, one thing that I did appreciate during the discussion, for all of Dawkins bluster and polemics he's noted for, he came across as very cordial.  I have no idea if it's due to the respect that he has for Lennox as they are both noted speakers in their respective fields at Oxford, or 
the bluster and polemics are just an act to garner attention, or maybe he just had a better breakfast.  Who knows, but he showed a side of himself that wasn't  Classic Dawkins and I thought it helped him appear more legitimate.  Just my opinion.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Sorry Stripe.  I can't follow.  Where you see a paradox or contradiction within a created theoretical question/ framework, I simply see a logically flawed question, but I appreciate you making me think it out and defend it.
> 
> Regarding the term "all powerful" I think I carries several if not many different meaning, depending on who you ask, and maybe particularly regarding those within the theological community.
> 
> Honestly I think it's like a lot of other huge terms that we use, but in all actuality have very little understanding as to what they truely are such as time, gravity, color, information/data, etc.  Anyway hope you get a chance to listen to the Lennox/Dawkins conversation.  The last 5 minutes or so are worth it.
> 
> On a side note, one thing that I did appreciate during the discussion, for all of Dawkins bluster and polemics he's noted for, he came across as very cordial.  I have no idea if it's due to the respect that he has for Lennox as they are both noted speakers in their respective fields at Oxford, or
> the bluster and polemics are just an act to garner attention, or maybe he just had a better breakfast.  Who knows, but he showed a side of himself that wasn't  Classic Dawkins and I thought it helped him appear more legitimate.  Just my opinion.



And it's that difference in meaning that has me going to the dictionary. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/all-powerful

Meaning can change from person to person, the definition is, somewhat, fixed on words like this. We may alter words like "hit" to accommodate junkies taking a hit of their drug du jour, but all-powerful is fairly straight forward, or so it seems. 



> having complete or sole power <an all–powerful leader>



Let's forgo the sole aspect, considering if we're discussing this we've already accepted the premise that He IS God, and there are none other.

Complete power, now that's pretty straight forward, I would think. 100% power, in accordance to their role. A despot may be all-powerful within their borders, but God's domain is everywhere. So he has complete power everywhere, natural, supernatural, Heaven, Hades, Earth. 

Gravity is the attraction of one body to another, and is inversely square to their distance, based on their mass. 

Color is the interpretation of the frequency of the wavelengths of light by the rods and cones in our eyes. 

We may not know what gives objects their mass, and thus how gravity originates, but we understand it and color really well in how they play in the world. 

If someone has complete power over something, then they can do whatever they wish with it, right? Well, if there are no limits on that entities dominion, then there are no limits on their power. It's straight conditional statements based on the definition. If A then B. 

That would mean that God could create a rock that he couldn't lift, but he would therefore be unable to lift it, demonstrating less than perfect complete power. That brings up another awesome aspect. Perfection. But we'll leave it there for now.


----------



## Israel

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> He wouldn't, at least under normal, natural, circumstances. He created the universe, so goes the tale, so any rock that could be created would also be in the universe, and thus smaller than it. If we place the bounds for the rock at the edge of the universe then he can only create a rock so big, even though he would, in theory still be able to move it. Maybe the limitation is on the physical dimensions of the rock, and not a shortcoming with Himself, but that again, dodges the question, IMO.
> 
> The point of the question isn't really how God would accomplish the feat. It's how the believer rationalizes the contradiction within themselves. It's making one scrutinize the chosen words that characterize the power of God. You could say that he is supremely powerful, and that would be true. He's way more powerful than any other being we could attest to. But when you try to remove all boundaries on power and knowledge, you introduce the certainty of creating paradoxes. Like knowing all, but leaving free will. And creating huge rocks. Or knowing us all before we're born, but still punishing us for the decisions He knows we're going to make anyway.
> 
> It's a bit of a red herring, but it is, in my humble opinion, quite possibly the best red herring, and the most beneficial to a person and thus humanity, in existence. It leads us down a seemingly pointless rabbit hole, but the point of that rabbit hole is to get us to examine the arguments we've bit off on, hook, line, and sinker.
> It's easy to say that God is all-powerful, it's another to follow that assertion to the extreme limits, because there should be no limits on the all-powerful.



I would agree and ask if it could also include the assumptions we have made as to the meanings of those things we have embraced in making those arguments ( even within ourselves)?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Israel said:


> I would agree and ask if it could also include the assumptions we have made as to the *meanings of those things* we have embraced in making those arguments ( even within ourselves)?



Such as?


----------



## WaltL1

Interesting conversation ya'll got going on here -


> That would mean that God could create a rock that he couldn't lift, but he would therefore be unable to lift it, demonstrating less than perfect complete power





> Regarding the term "all powerful" I think I carries several if not many different meaning, depending on who you ask, and maybe particularly regarding those within the theological community.


I agree with SFD on this but on generic terms -


> Regarding the term "all powerful" I think I carries several if not many different meaning, depending on who you ask,


But I personally have NEVER had a conversation with a Christian that put any limits whatsoever, of any kind. in any way, on God's power -


> and maybe particularly regarding those within the theological community


Personally I think its another one of those "believe it and don't question it" things because questioning leads you right to Striperrs question/statement/observation.


----------



## Israel

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Such as?



I suppose for the sake of these discussions, power.
But he it might just as easily be wisdom, intelligence, judgment, logic, reason.
And of course, love.


----------



## 660griz

Instead of the rock, I would settle for easing some suffering. That should be easy for a loving God. However, he can't seem to do that. I think even a small rock is impossible for him. 
Ask 'him' why he waited approximately 4.3 billion years before creating man. Ask him how the descendants of Adam and Eve could start other religions and worship other Gods before he was known about. Ask him why he created a planet just for the people he loves with only about 15% of it inhabitable. Ask him why he saves folks with resources from ebola and lets 1000s of poor folks die.
Please don't tell me to ask him myself, I have.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Israel said:


> I suppose for the sake of these discussions, power.
> But he it might just as easily be wisdom, intelligence, judgment, logic, reason.
> And of course, love.



All-powerful encompasses all "powers" and has no limitations on them, at least so far as has been identified. 

Can you find a Biblical reference to limitations on God's power?


----------



## bullethead

660griz said:


> Instead of the rock, I would settle for easing some suffering. That should be easy for a loving God. However, he can't seem to do that. I think even a small rock is impossible for him.
> Ask 'him' why he waited approximately 4.3 billion years before creating man. Ask him how the descendants of Adam and Eve could start other religions and worship other Gods before he was known about. Ask him why he created a planet just for the people he loves with only about 15% of it inhabitable. Ask him why he saves folks with resources from ebola and lets 1000s of poor folks die.
> Please don't tell me to ask him myself, I have.



Anytime someone can take a step back without religion clouding the picture  and really look into the Earth's past to present and the history contained in between there is no evidence of any sort of God as it has been portrayed by its believers.
The facts do not back up the claims. 
Humans constantly making excuses for a non existent god should be one of many wake up calls.
Humans in constant disagreement about the same god yet all swear to know the god better than the next person should seal the deal.


----------



## drippin' rock

bullethead said:


> Anytime someone can take a step back without religion clouding the picture  and really look into the Earth's past to present and the history contained in between there is no evidence of any sort of God as it has been portrayed by its believers.
> The facts do not back up the claims.
> Humans constantly making excuses for a non existent god should be one of many wake up calls.
> Humans in constant disagreement about the same god yet all swear to know the god better than the next person should seal the deal.



Yep.


----------



## JB0704

bullethead said:


> Anytime someone can take a step back without religion clouding the picture  and really look into the Earth's past to present and the history contained in between there is no evidence of any sort of God as it has been portrayed by its believers.
> The facts do not back up the claims.
> Humans constantly making excuses for a non existent god should be one of many wake up calls.
> Humans in constant disagreement about the same god yet all swear to know the god better than the next person should seal the deal.



Did it bother you much when you became convinced there was not a God, at least an active one?  Seriously curious about that......and really and of the AA's who read this (considered starting a new thread on it, but decided it would be a better response to a post).


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Did it bother you much when you became convinced there was not a God, at least an active one?  Seriously curious about that......and really and of the AA's who read this (considered starting a new thread on it, but decided it would be a better response to a post).



The first time I said something like that out loud was in a moment of intense anger. I then realized that I didn't actually believe that there wasn't one, just that I didn't know either way. 

It was traumatic for me to add that to the pile of things that made me say it in the first place, and took a long time for me to fully explore within myself.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> Did it bother you much when you became convinced there was not a God



No. What bothered me is that I had been lied to, and taught something without the option of reviewing all and making a decision for myself early on. 
After that, it bothered me that folks I respected and admired still believed. 
Then, I got a little scared thinking about the billions of folks that relied on their version of good and evil in order to do good and evil. Not because it was the right thing to do but because a book told them it was the right thing to do. Still scares me a little. Anything that helps folks shun personal responsibility scares me a little. "The devil got me on drugs but, God got me off drugs." That is really scary to me.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> It was traumatic for me to add that to the pile of things that made me say it in the first place, and took a long time for me to fully explore within myself.



That's what I would anticipate for most, except from those who reject faith because of a rebellion against something.

This is not intended to be an insult, but, when I consider what y'all and other AA's I know say and try to see the world from that perspective, I don't like the feeling associated with it......if that makes sense.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> No. What bothered me is that I had been lied to, and taught something without the option of reviewing all and making a decision for myself early on.
> After that, it bothered me that folks I respected and admired still believed.



Were they lieing, or passing along what they believed to be true, and you found a different conclusion?



660griz said:


> "The devil got me on drugs but, God got me off drugs." That is really scary to me.



I understand that, and feel the same way even though I am a believer.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> That's what I would anticipate for most, except from those who reject faith because of a rebellion against something.
> 
> This is not intended to be an insult, but, when I consider what y'all and other AA's I know say and try to see the world from that perspective, I don't like the feeling associated with it......if that makes sense.



It's like any transitional period in your life, or just generally doing something you've never done before. 

What is it you don't like about the feeling, and what feeling would it be? 

I say it was traumatic for me because, like I said, I was dealing with a bunch of things already and it just kind of blurted out. I saw a side of myself in that moment that I'd never seen before and I was afraid of what else might be hiding in the shadows. I knew I had doubts, and I knew that I didn't believe the book, but to go from doubts to screaming that there is no God with tears in my eyes because of the anger I felt was scary. 

But I sat down and explored why I said it, and came to the conclusion that it was just something I said while I was hurting and that I didn't really believe it. Moreover, I couldn't prove, even to myself, that there wasn't one, or that there was. It was that moment that solidified my agnostic viewpoints.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> Were they lieing, or passing along what they believed to be true, and you found a different conclusion?



They were not telling me the truth. Call it whatever.
They didn't say, "Here are your options but, this is what we believe to be true." 

One definition of lie is --an intentional untruth. 
So, I was mislead? 

How would you feel if you were taught to believe in unicorns? And, your family still believed in unicorns.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> What is it you don't like about the feeling, and what feeling would it be?



Existence itself makes no sense without a driver.  I have trouble comprehending all the machinery involved in the universe being what it is as an accident, and, even more than that.....it becomes much more fragile if it is.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I say it was traumatic for me because, like I said, I was dealing with a bunch of things already and it just kind of blurted out. I saw a side of myself in that moment that I'd never seen before and I was afraid of what else might be hiding in the shadows. I knew I had doubts, and I knew that I didn't believe the book, but to go from doubts to screaming that there is no God with tears in my eyes because of the anger I felt was scary.



You are a little more introspective than most.   Tough times led me to question things too.  I just didn't get to where you got.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> How would you feel if you were taught to believe in unicorns? And, your family still believed in unicorns.



If they really believed in unicorns, I would feel a lot better about it than if they were just telling me stuff. 

I was taught to believe there were balck panthers in Ga.  Everybody I hunted with as a kid claimed, and believes, they saw at least one, some saw several.  Over the years, I grew to understand that they saw something, but it wasn't a black panther.  I don't hold it against them.

I'm more upset with them for using my deer tags when they filled theirs.  These were all "God fearing Christians."  Apparently their beliefs didn't apply to game laws


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Existence itself makes no sense without a driver.  I have trouble comprehending all the machinery involved in the universe being what it is as an accident, and, even more than that.....it becomes much more fragile if it is.
> 
> 
> 
> You are a little more introspective than most.   Tough times led me to question things too.  I just didn't get to where you got.



We're our own X factor so we all have a different interpretation of the same things. 

Why is the universe, or existence, under any obligation to make sense? Why is it supposed to make sense to one small population of insignificant beings, when compared with the vastness of the rest of the universe?


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Why is the universe, or existence, under any obligation to make sense?



Without a God, it isn't.  God isn't obligated either, but, if he created us, there had to be a reason, even if that reason is a momentary (in an infinite system's sense) whim.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Why is it supposed to make sense to one small population of insignificant beings, when compared with the vastness of the rest of the universe?



Because we are here and a product of it, and we are at it's mercy.  If "it" is God, then that makes more sense, or, seems more stable.  If "it" is an accidental occurence, then what created such a system and stability could just as easily collapse.

.....it's kind-a the same helpless felling one gets while watching the movie Melancholia.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Without a God, it isn't.  God isn't obligated either, but, if he created us, there had to be a reason, even if that reason is a momentary (in an infinite system's sense) whim.
> 
> 
> 
> Because we are here and a product of it, and we are at it's mercy.  If "it" is God, then that makes more sense, or, seems more stable.  If "it" is an accidental occurence, then what created such a system and stability could just as easily collapse.
> 
> .....it's kind-a the same helpless felling one gets while watching the movie Melancholia.



Your existence is tiny and fleeting when viewed from the perspective of the cosmos through the lens of time. 

I've done the math before and I can lay it out again, if need be, but if you compress all of the earth's history into a 24 hour clock, 50 years equals something like .0024 seconds. So if you assume that you'll live for 100 years, forgoing the possibility of eternal life for a moment, then you will have existed for .0048 seconds when compared with the earth's 24 hours. The numbers are even worse when viewed from the cosmos' perspective. 

And yet people like Galileo, Da Vinci, and others have found a way to achieve immortality, at least so long as humans live, through means other than a deity of dubious, intentionally dubious, existence. So it's not as depressing as it would seem on the surface. 

The comfort I derive in my life is knowing that I have touched other lives and, so long as people remember me, or my actions ripple on through eternity, thus have a much more likely, and more readily observed, means of attaining eternal life. I can demonstrate to you how the words of others written in the past have granted them immortality. You would be hard pressed to sell anyone on the idea of Heaven who didn't already believe in the premise. 

Lastly, did you ever create anything just because you could? Fiddle around in the garage and end up making a plant stand for someone, or a birdhouse, but never really have any intent behind it other than wasting time? Or because you just had the materials laying around and didn't want them to go to waste? It could be that, if there is a God, we're nothing more than a musing to Him that kept him from being totally lazy "one Saturday." 

There's no mandate for sense anywhere in the universe, at least so far as we can see. And, unlike faith in a deity, the laws of nature exist whether one believes it or not. Which is why I find it so funny when people say they, "believe in evolution, or believe in gravity." Evolution is happening all around you, gravity affects you every day of your life. Belief in it has no impact on that, and there is no meaning behind it other than the outcome of previous circumstances.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Your existence is tiny and fleeting when viewed from the perspective of the cosmos through the lens of time.



Yes, but I will never see it from that perspective, nor will you.  Our own perspective is all we got.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> And, unlike faith in a deity, the laws of nature exist whether one believes it or not.



But, why?  Think about it......does any thing exist that does not require another thing to exist?  Even a rock requires energy to create, and that's ignoring the types of bonds required to hold it together.  Everything needs cooperation amongst multiple things.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> If they really believed in unicorns, I would feel a lot better about it than if they were just telling me stuff.



Unicorns was a bad analogy on my part. There is not much that is analogous to being scared about your every move and worried about being tortured forever.


----------



## 660griz

JB0704 said:


> Everything needs cooperation amongst multiple things.



Except....God.


----------



## JB0704

660griz said:


> Except....God.



That's the original cause.  We either got one, or cooperation is infinite amongst everything, which is also infinite.  Which is why God just makes more sense to me.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Yes, but I will never see it from that perspective, nor will you.  Our own perspective is all we got.
> 
> 
> 
> But, why?  Think about it......does any thing exist that does not require another thing to exist?  Even a rock requires energy to create, and that's ignoring the types of bonds required to hold it together.  Everything needs cooperation amongst multiple things.



I illustrated it for you. 

I'm not concerned with the why. The why is unknowable to us regardless of deities. There might be one, there might not be. 

I've somewhat given up on the speculative searches for whys, unless they are mechanical, but even those break down pretty quickly. 

Why do we have rocks? Like you said, energy and the interactions that take place once the energy of the big bang cooled enough to form matter. Now, why was that energy there? Why was there enough lack in uniformity so that the matter/antimatter pairs weren't always perfectly paired off thus leaving the residual matter particles? Why were they not distributed uniformly, either, allowing gravity to get something to sink its teeth into to form galaxies and star systems and planets? That's unknown and I'm okay with that, even if we never answer it. 

Like I said, I derive both meaning and purpose for my life from the direct observation that what I do, and how I behave, causes ripples to flow on the fabric of humanity. I can observe it, I can demonstrate it for you, and you would be hard pressed to prove that it wasn't happening. Unlike any promises of eternal life and paradise after death.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Like I said, I derive both meaning and purpose for my life from the direct observation that what I do, and how I behave, causes ripples to flow on the fabric of humanity.



I'm a Christian, and actually like the ripple analogy.  There is plenty of reasons to do our best while we are alive.  However, even though I consider the positive/negative impact of my "ripples," it does not get me around the questions which lead me to believe in a catalyst starting it all.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> I'm a Christian, and actually like the ripple analogy.  There is plenty of reasons to do our best while we are alive.  However, even though I consider the positive/negative impact of my "ripples," it does not get me around the questions which lead me to believe in a catalyst starting it all.



You, no insult, aren't looking for a catalyst. You're looking for someone to apply that catalyst and remove the randomness from the universe. 

I could speculate as to why you need that randomness removed, but it's better to ask you. 

Have you ever considered the question of why randomness doesn't sit well with you?


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> You, no insult, aren't looking for a catalyst. You're looking for someone to apply that catalyst and remove the randomness from the universe.



No, I've concluded the catalyst is necessary to existence because there is nothing random about anything based on the conclusions I have posted above.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Have you ever considered the question of why randomness doesn't sit well with you?



What holds you together?  Why? 

Ask the same thing of everything, and anything that is simply there by coincindence is also removed by coincidence.......but, it never gets removed.  The universe remains in order, and everything remains inter-dependant.

You can site the laws of nature, but, without a creator, there is no reason for those laws to be there, and there is no factor indicating they will continue.  You are subject to be dispersed at any given time.....as is everything else once that "thing" that holds it together coincidentally quits doing what it does.  

Have you ever considered how wonderfully coincidental it is that both matter and energy exist?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> No, I've concluded the catalyst is necessary to existence because there is nothing random about anything based on the conclusions I have posted above.
> 
> 
> 
> What holds you together?  Why?
> 
> Ask the same thing of everything, and anything that is simply there by coincindence is also removed by coincidence.......but, it never gets removed.  The universe remains in order, and everything remains inter-dependant.



Yes, everything is dependent on cause and effect. For their to be an effect, there first had to be a cause. However, there is nothing saying that you have to be able to understand that cause, or that it should be something supernatural. That's a logical leap. 

Anything that is happening right now can be traced to the BB with a few small gaps. Namely how life got started on this planet, we don't have the smoking gun for that, and likely never will. However, I'm content with believing that we're the product of random collisions amongst simple chemicals that bonded and formed complex molecules that grouped together, diversified, and became more complex over unfathomably large amounts of time. You seem to need someone behind the curtain pulling the strings to make that all happen. Why? Is it not miraculous enough to just witness the world without the lens of religion or faith, and just contemplate the sheer odds of it all? I use miraculous as an adjective here, not as an adverb. 

The only time in all of creation where there is truly the chance for the unknown is the moment of the BB. We can't know why it was a singularity before it happened, we can't know how long it existed as a singularity before it happened, and we can't know what caused it to suddenly expand because of our own limitations in science right now. We're like a kid dumped off on the side of the road with no education and no family, trying to feel our way around in the world and discover everything. We'll learn, we'll evolve our science just as we do, and breakthroughs will happen that allow us to get closer and closer to that moment. However, given that we have particle accelerators and we routinely smash atoms together now, perhaps that's all that happened, we just perceive our existence, and our cosmos', to be longer due to our subjective measuring. Maybe there are tiny cosmos created in every acceleration and smash that we do, that perceive themselves to exist for billions of their years before they evaporate to energy and other particles again. That doesn't trivialize their existence, if they do exist, rather it makes them just as special as we are for having existed at all, even in this physical realm alone. Maybe we're the product of such an acceleration and the beings that created us did so by pure happenstance and the capability to do so, without even realizing we were ever here. 

That doesn't trivialize your existence either. You are a miracle, just like the rest of us, in having been created at all from the simple building blocks that also make up stars, and sand, and water, and the rest of the universe. Why does there have to be more meaning than that?


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Namely how life got started on this planet, we don't have the smoking gun for that, and likely never will.



That's because life does not spontaneously happen, and requires life to sustain itself.



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> However, I'm content with believing that we're the product of random collisions amongst simple chemicals that bonded and formed complex molecules that grouped together, diversified, and became more complex over unfathomably large amounts of time.



You and everything else that exists?  Again, isn't it coincidental that both matter _AND_ energy exist?  Take it one step further......if there ain't a God, then both must be infinite.

That's why we just have different conclusions.  It's not that I need additional meaning, it's just that I am convinced there is.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> That's because life does not spontaneously happen, and requires life to sustain itself.
> 
> 
> 
> You and everything else that exists?  Again, isn't it coincidental that both matter _AND_ energy exist?  Take it one step further......if there ain't a God, then both must be infinite.
> 
> That's why we just have different conclusions.  It's not that I need additional meaning, it's just that I am convinced there is.



Why must both be infinite? I can show you that both are finite. What are your sources that say without God that matter and energy must be infinite? 

You believe that life doesn't spontaneously happen. I believe we haven't got to the root of the question yet, scientifically speaking. 

Further, E=mc^2 shows that matter and energy can transform from one to the other.


----------



## JB0704

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Why must both be infinite? I can show you that both are finite. What are your sources that say without God that matter and energy must be infinite?



Without a creator, how did either get here? 



StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Further, E=mc^2 shows that matter and energy can transform from one to the other.



Which begat which?  And, again, how lucky for everything it worked out that way


----------



## StriperrHunterr

JB0704 said:


> Without a creator, how did either get here?
> 
> 
> 
> Which begat which?  And, again, how lucky for everything it worked out that way



Big Bang. Energy and matter were compressed to a singularity. Before that, dunno, don't care and likely won't be answered in either of our lifetimes. 

Well, again according to BB, energy begat matter. You can go the other way, but you have to smash them together with the equivalent force of the speed of light squared. That happens in the heart of stars. 

Lucky, maybe. Perhaps we are but one experiment ran with these parameters and an infinite number of big bangs happened, or are happening, in other cosmos and they didn't take. 

Either way, both are good reasons why I'm agnostic. The constants, and equations being just so are too much for me to say that it's impossible that there's a creator, but there's not enough evidence to climb down from the fence onto the creationist side. Even then, I wouldn't be a Christian because their story doesn't jibe with the observable evidence and my personality requires that the story of creation be reconcilable with the observed state. 

I don't think a creator would give us the gift of reason and science, but make us so bad at both so as to confuse 14 billion years with 6000, or 6 days.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Big Bang. Energy and matter were compressed to a singularity. Before that, dunno, don't care and likely won't be answered in either of our lifetimes.
> 
> Well, again according to BB, energy begat matter. You can go the other way, but you have to smash them together with the equivalent force of the speed of light squared. That happens in the heart of stars.
> 
> Lucky, maybe. Perhaps we are but one experiment ran with these parameters and an infinite number of big bangs happened, or are happening, in other cosmos and they didn't take.
> 
> Either way, both are good reasons why I'm agnostic. The constants, and equations being just so are too much for me to say that it's impossible that there's a creator, but there's not enough evidence to climb down from the fence onto the creationist side. Even then, I wouldn't be a Christian because their story doesn't jibe with the observable evidence and my personality requires that the story of creation be reconcilable with the observed state.
> 
> I don't think a creator would give us the gift of reason and science, but make us so bad at both so as to confuse 14 billion years with 6000, or 6 days.




Great conversation, guys.

As to the part in blue, I don't know either but I care a little.  I'm glad that there are people that care a lot and that keep smashing atoms into each other and making calculations and measurements. I believe that one day we will be able to understand how life came from inanimate matter.  Imagine if you told someone a thousand years ago about smart phones.  We're bumbling infants.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Big Bang. Energy and matter were compressed to a singularity. Before that, dunno, don't care and likely won't be answered in either of our lifetimes.
> 
> Well, again according to BB, energy begat matter. You can go the other way, but you have to smash them together with the equivalent force of the speed of light squared. That happens in the heart of stars.
> 
> Lucky, maybe. Perhaps we are but one experiment ran with these parameters and an infinite number of big bangs happened, or are happening, in other cosmos and they didn't take.
> 
> Either way, both are good reasons why I'm agnostic. The constants, and equations being just so are too much for me to say that it's impossible that there's a creator, but there's not enough evidence to climb down from the fence onto the creationist side. Even then, I wouldn't be a Christian because their story doesn't jibe with the observable evidence and my personality requires that the story of creation be reconcilable with the observed state.
> 
> I don't think a creator would give us the gift of reason and science, but make us so bad at both so as to confuse 14 billion years with 6000, or 6 days.



That's your opinion. 

I imagine that in the mind of a believer this is the kind of dialogue that might happen: "God can do anything, whether or not you understand it.  He CAN make a rock so big he can't lift it, but when he wants to he can lift it.  Don't ask me how.  I can't know. I'm not God.  But I trust and obey 'cause there's no other way.  A man can't understand His ways with the natural mind.  But he has given me everything I have ever needed (which may or may not include an infant mortality)."

At that point the discussion is over, isn't it?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

ambush80 said:


> Great conversation, guys.
> 
> As to the part in blue, I don't know either but I care a little.  I'm glad that there are people that care a lot and that keep smashing atoms into each other and making calculations and measurements. I believe that one day we will be able to understand how life came from inanimate matter.  Imagine if you told someone a thousand years ago about smart phones.  We're bumbling infants.



Oh I'm very glad they care. I'm interested in it as a hobby, so to say, but at the end of the day it matters very little in my day-to-day life. Given that I can only care so much about so many things before I'm tapped out, I choose to focus on other things and leave that to more interested people.


----------



## bullethead

JB0704 said:


> Did it bother you much when you became convinced there was not a God, at least an active one?  Seriously curious about that......and really and of the AA's who read this (considered starting a new thread on it, but decided it would be a better response to a post).



JB absolutely.
For 20 years of my life I was 100% absolutely positive there was a God and it WAS the God of Abraham, the God of the OT and NT and that His Son was Jesus Christ our Savior.
As I had some doubts about certain things within organized religion I set out to prove to myself that everything I knew about my religion and my beliefs was true.
The more I dug the less I liked what I found and in many cases didn't find.
To say it bothered me is understated. It was and still sometimes is a struggle. One of the hardest things..and this is literally very recent within my 20 plus years of dwindling belief...is when I stopped praying and stopped thanking a higher power.
As a human I think it is a natural evolved response and don't think there is anything wrong with saying what you need to say to a being that you believe is listening. As a human that spends way too much time checking into the history of gods and religion I now think I was wasting my time.
I cannot say that there is not a creator....in whatever form or function that may be.....but I am extremely confident that it is nothing that is like a human or cares one iota about humans any more or any less than anything else in this Universe.


----------



## ambush80

JB,

At first I felt liberated and zealous.  Later I felt fear that I might be wrong.  These days I feel a longing for those days of certainty, when everything had a "reason" and a "purpose" but it's for sentimental reasons and I know that.

Even Richard Dawkins has said that he's only 99.9999% sure that there is no god.   I guess I'm like that too.  Why so certain?  The evidence or lack there of.  I know you're a thoughtful person but the the reason you believe still comes down to "Irreducible Complexity".  It's not enough.  It shouldn't be.


----------



## JB0704

Guys, I approciate y'all taking the time ang giving thoughtful answers.....I'm fixing to hit the road, but I'll follow up as soon as I can


----------



## ambush80

JB0704 said:


> Guys, I approciate y'all taking the time ang giving thoughtful answers.....I'm fixing to hit the road, but I'll follow up as soon as I can



Safe travels, my man.


----------



## bullethead

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6430958?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
The intellectual and emotional energy it takes to figure out how God fits into everything is far greater than dealing with reality as it presents itself to us... the existence of God seems like an extra layer of complexity that isn't necessary. The world makes more sense to me as it is, without postulating a divine being who is somehow in charge of things.


----------



## drippin' rock

I find myself struggling to be tolerant of the religious viewpoint these days. Whenever I come across someone in person that mentions looking forward to the afterlife so they can be with Jesus, my thoughts are usually," oh good lord.  I'm talking to a crazy person."  I still don't see what the rush is. I like this life just fine. 

Being born and raised in the Bible Belt and knowing the whys and what fors of Christianity has not brought me any closer to agreeing or believing. If the God of the bible does exist I have a few questions for him, cause I don't agree with some of his methods.


----------



## 660griz

I would have a few questions for God too. Like, why, after being around literally forever, would you decide to create humans, knowing they would struggle to survive, kill large quantities of each other, suffer in a huge scale and belief in you would wane thus the numbers of folks joining you in heaven decreasing all along, and knowing you would have to sacrifice your son? Surely you could have just conjured up some 'company' wherever you are. WHAT WAS/IS THE POINT?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

Yeah, if I'm wrong and there is a God then there's going to be a long list of questions. I don't expect answers, but I'll have eternity to play the shadow game with him, repeatedly asking them, so we'll see how it goes. 

Maybe my perspective will shift between now and my death, though.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Yeah, if I'm wrong and there is a God then there's going to be a long list of questions. I don't expect answers, but I'll have eternity to play the shadow game with him, repeatedly asking them, so we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Maybe my perspective will shift between now and my death, though.



This, assuming your consciousness outlives your body.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> JB,
> 
> At first I felt liberated and zealous.  Later I felt fear that I might be wrong.  These days I feel a longing for those days of certainty, when everything had a "reason" and a "purpose" but it's for sentimental reasons and I know that.
> 
> Even Richard Dawkins has said that he's only 99.9999% sure that there is no god.   I guess I'm like that too.  Why so certain?  The evidence or lack there of.  I know you're a thoughtful person but the the reason you believe still comes down to "Irreducible Complexity".  It's not enough.  It shouldn't be.



What do they call the guy who graduates last in his class at medical school?




























Doctor.


What do they call the guy that's 99.9999% certain?





















Uncertain.


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> What do they call the guy that's 99.9999% certain?
> Uncertain.



Certain enough.


----------



## Israel

Certain enough...for what?


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Certain enough...for what?



To operate upon it like its true.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> To operate upon it like its true.



Do you know anyone that doesn't?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

ambush80 said:


> That's your opinion.
> 
> I imagine that in the mind of a believer this is the kind of dialogue that might happen: "God can do anything, whether or not you understand it.  He CAN make a rock so big he can't lift it, but when he wants to he can lift it.  Don't ask me how.  I can't know. I'm not God.  But I trust and obey 'cause there's no other way.  A man can't understand His ways with the natural mind.  But he has given me everything I have ever needed (which may or may not include an infant mortality)."
> 
> At that point the discussion is over, isn't it?



No, the conversation is over when someone goes from saying what you say they would, to, "but I know that God is...or God wants...or God will..."


----------



## JB0704

ambush80 said:


> At first I felt liberated and zealous.  Later I felt fear that I might be wrong.



Was this in response to a strict religious upbringing? 

I was brought up in a strict religious home, and with that comes rebellion and fear.  I have changed the perspective of God from what I was given in my youth, as that concept is one used to control people, the OT perspective with Jesus as a judge rather than savior.  Currently, I see God as presented in the gospels as this seems in line with what I believe the Book is saying.




ambush80 said:


> These days I feel a longing for those days of certainty, when everything had a "reason" and a "purpose" but it's for sentimental reasons and I know that.



I believe if I were to ever become convinced there was not a God, it would make me more sentimental towards my friends and loved ones, because it would make everything more temporary, and fragile.  And, I will admit that I may not need a purpose, but the world seems more orderly and secure with it.



ambush80 said:


> I know you're a thoughtful person but the the reason you believe still comes down to "Irreducible Complexity".  It's not enough.  It shouldn't be.



Isn't what should or shouldn't be an individual assessment?  I know you guys place a very high premium on intellectual honesty, and so do many Christians, I do too, but that does mean the "let go and let God" types do not still live very full lives.  They just do so on their terms.

I've mentioned my wife's faith many times on here.  She is  a good person who works hard, has integrity, and tries to do right by everybody.  She is a very good mother, friend, wife, and excels at her job.  But, her faith is incredibly simple.  She is a "let go and let God" type, and I admire that.....because she gets joy and peace from things that I cannot.  It does not seem to be a hinderance to her life, instead, I think it adds a lot for her.


----------



## JB0704

bullethead said:


> To say it bothered me is understated. It was and still sometimes is a struggle. One of the hardest things..and this is literally very recent within my 20 plus years of dwindling belief...is when I stopped praying and stopped thanking a higher power.



I went through something a few years back that rattled me worse than anything I had ever been through.  I cannot imagine having gone through that without faith.  I am sure it's tough to get to the point you are at, particularly if you know what the "safety net" feels like.



bullethead said:


> As a human I think it is a natural evolved response and don't think there is anything wrong with saying what you need to say to a being that you believe is listening. As a human that spends way too much time checking into the history of gods and religion I now think I was wasting my time.
> I cannot say that there is not a creator....in whatever form or function that may be.....but I am extremely confident that it is nothing that is like a human or cares one iota about humans any more or any less than anything else in this Universe.



Curious, but you said you just recently quit giving thanks.  Does this make you more or less thankful than you were previously even though you do not think there is anything to be thankful too beyond circumstance?


----------



## bullethead

JB0704 said:


> I went through something a few years back that rattled me worse than anything I had ever been through.  I cannot imagine having gone through that without faith.  I am sure it's tough to get to the point you are at, particularly if you know what the "safety net" feels like.
> 
> 
> 
> Curious, but you said you just recently quit giving thanks.  Does this make you more or less thankful than you were previously even though you do not think there is anything to be thankful too beyond circumstance?



I am just as thankful within myself and for whoever else is involved....I just cut out the the 3rd invisible party.
Nothing has changed. The same amount of catching breaks happens. Illnesses come and go. Things still work out.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> No, the conversation is over when someone goes from saying what you say they would, to, "but I know that God is...or God wants...or God will..."




Isn't that kind of what you did here:
_
"I don't think a creator would give us the gift of reason and science, but make us so bad at both so as to confuse 14 billion years with 6000, or 6 days."_


----------



## StriperrHunterr

ambush80 said:


> Isn't that kind of what you did here:
> _
> "I don't think a creator would give us the gift of reason and science, but make us so bad at both so as to confuse 14 billion years with 6000, or 6 days."_




I can see how you'd think that, but that second quote was me merely adopting the faithful's POV to show the contradiction between observable evidence and supposed story of creation. 

My personal belief is that there's no evidence for a creator, but also none against, so anything else is unable to be truly known about them. But our best methods so far have determined the age of the cosmos and the earth to be X values, and I don't see how, if you subscribe to the idea of a creator, they could give us such a gift as that of science and logic, but make it so flawed as to be completely contrary to what the inspired word tells us.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I can see how you'd think that, but that second quote was me merely adopting the faithful's POV to show the contradiction between observable evidence and supposed story of creation.
> 
> My personal belief is that there's no evidence for a creator, but also none against, so anything else is unable to be truly known about them. But our best methods so far have determined the age of the cosmos and the earth to be X values, and I don't see how, if you subscribe to the idea of a creator, they could give us such a gift as that of science and logic, but make it so flawed as to be completely contrary to what the inspired word tells us.



That's why believers, when faced with the facts need to abandon fundamentalist, literal interpretations and reclassifying the text as metaphor.

I agree that it's a messy business and like Bullet think that adding a "being" is an unnecessary third step.  It's also evidence to me that the book isn't really perfect or divine.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

ambush80 said:


> That's why believers, when faced with the facts need to abandon fundamentalist, literal interpretations and reclassifying the text as metaphor.
> 
> I agree that it's a messy business and like Bullet think that adding a "being" is an unnecessary third step.  It's also evidence to me that the book isn't really perfect or divine.



The being isn't unnecessary. The being is vital, at least from a standpoint of evolution of beliefs. If it's a being, then it can be personified, and has whims, and goals all their own. If it's a "force" then it just does what it will and there's no way for you to have a relationship with it. 

I don't know if you own any pets, but I do. We can't communicate as clearly, the pets and I, as you and I can. But when I talk to them, their ears go up, and you can tell a happy dog from a sad dog, or a scared dog, and especially an angry dog. You can relate to the dog, even if you can't fully comprehend every aspect of them. 

A river, the embodiment of a force, on the other hand, can't be personified or communed with, in any conceivable way. You can pray to the river to not flood, but if you're praying to an entity that controls the river, on the other hand, then they may deny your prayer with "reasons" as varied as it's not their plan, or you didn't sacrifice enough virgins that year. Or they may "hear your prayer" and not flood it, at least as much as you can observe anyway. If there's no entity and just the river itself, then there's no interaction, and that's scary to a primitive mind. Not saying modern believers are primitive, just the genesis of religion, and deities to begin with, owes a lot to a primitive mind with lots of downtime when the sun goes down, trying to rationalize and interact with a random existence. 

It's much the same as, in modern times, the fear impulse is being experimented with in humans. In primitive days you had very real things to be afraid of like being killed by a vicious animal or even just a snake, or falling out of a high tree, or cliff, trying to get your food. Fear of heights and fear of certain animals are products of the biological need to create progeny. However, when you remove that pervasive threat, you get fear of clowns, and fear of certain colors or numbers. Irrational expressions of a very rational need, the need to understand and interact with our environment in a way that doesn't leave us laying down paralyzed by the random nature of the world.


----------



## ambush80

JB0704 said:


> Was this in response to a strict religious upbringing?



Nah, My parents didn't become thumpers til they moved down here.  It's my dad who went most off the deep end.  My mom is still pretty progressive.



JB0704 said:


> I was brought up in a strict religious home, and with that comes rebellion and fear.  I have changed the perspective of God from what I was given in my youth, as that concept is one used to control people, the OT perspective with Jesus as a judge rather than savior.  Currently, I see God as presented in the gospels as this seems in line with what I believe the Book is saying.



Yeah.  For a while I still believed in the Debbil and demons and He11. Gosh, probably into college.  That stuff is like a rusted on nut when it gets pounded into you as a kid;  hard to extract.  My dad used to tell us that kids are like new clay.  You can put things into it now but when it gets old and hardened, that stuff stays and can't be taken out.  






JB0704 said:


> I believe if I were to ever become convinced there was not a God, it would make me more sentimental towards my friends and loved ones, because it would make everything more temporary, and fragile.  And, I will admit that I may not need a purpose, but the world seems more orderly and secure with it.



Yes.  I try to live like there are no re-do's.  

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

― Mark Twain 



JB0704 said:


> Isn't what should or shouldn't be an individual assessment?  I know you guys place a very high premium on intellectual honesty, and so do many Christians, I do too, but that does mean the "let go and let God" types do not still live very full lives.  They just do so on their terms.
> 
> I've mentioned my wife's faith many times on here.  She is  a good person who works hard, has integrity, and tries to do right by everybody.  She is a very good mother, friend, wife, and excels at her job.  But, her faith is incredibly simple.  She is a "let go and let God" type, and I admire that.....because she gets joy and peace from things that I cannot.  It does not seem to be a hinderance to her life, instead, I think it adds a lot for her.



I suppose I would get on an airplane without fully understanding The Bernoulli Principle or how jet propultion works.  I feel better that I know some about those things.  

How many people have drunk a Mountain Dew without knowing what's in it?  Don't you think you should know? 

I can't really understand why people don't place a premium on self examination and curiosity in general.  I think sometimes they are afraid of what they may have found when they tried it.


----------



## ambush80

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> The being isn't unnecessary. The being is vital, at least from a standpoint of evolution of beliefs. If it's a being, then it can be personified, and has whims, and goals all their own. If it's a "force" then it just does what it will and there's no way for you to have a relationship with it.
> 
> I don't know if you own any pets, but I do. We can't communicate as clearly, the pets and I, as you and I can. But when I talk to them, their ears go up, and you can tell a happy dog from a sad dog, or a scared dog, and especially an angry dog. You can relate to the dog, even if you can't fully comprehend every aspect of them.
> 
> A river, the embodiment of a force, on the other hand, can't be personified or communed with, in any conceivable way. You can pray to the river to not flood, but if you're praying to an entity that controls the river, on the other hand, then they may deny your prayer with "reasons" as varied as it's not their plan, or you didn't sacrifice enough virgins that year. Or they may "hear your prayer" and not flood it, at least as much as you can observe anyway. If there's no entity and just the river itself, then there's no interaction, and that's scary to a primitive mind. Not saying modern believers are primitive, just the genesis of religion, and deities to begin with, owes a lot to a primitive mind with lots of downtime when the sun goes down, trying to rationalize and interact with a random existence.
> 
> It's much the same as, in modern times, the fear impulse is being experimented with in humans. In primitive days you had very real things to be afraid of like being killed by a vicious animal or even just a snake, or falling out of a high tree, or cliff, trying to get your food. Fear of heights and fear of certain animals are products of the biological need to create progeny. However, when you remove that pervasive threat, you get fear of clowns, and fear of certain colors or numbers. Irrational expressions of a very rational need, the need to understand and interact with our environment in a way that doesn't leave us laying down paralyzed by the random nature of the world.



Yup


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I agree, at least with earthly relationships.
> 
> Everything I've heard, or read, or been told, about God suggests that there is no sin that He can't wash away with a repentant heart.
> 
> We could argue the definition of repentance all we want, but that still doesn't matter to God. His definition, if there is one, is His.
> 
> But again, that goes back to a few key points.
> 
> 1) You don't know that your kid will break that vase, any more than you know your spouse will cheat. God, supposedly, knows all of that right now.
> 
> 2) We all have our house rules, some are more absolute than others, but let's draw an analogy for a second. Let's say that I invite you to my house for dinner. I tell you that I love my dog more than anything else, and command you not to kill it. For whatever reason, you decide that killing my dog is the thing to do and go through with it, after I've clearly proscribed it to you in our initial social contract. I don't know about you, but no matter how many times you ask for my forgiveness, or how badly your heart aches by being left out in the cold by me, but you will never, ever again be allowed to set foot in my house, and I will place a restraining order against you so I never have to see you or speak to you again. Sure, you can chalk that up to me being human, whereas God would forgive because He is divine, but I come back to the problem that if there are no consequences for breaking the rules, if you have the right "heart", then there is no point to the rules. You should be able to identify the right hearts without the testing.
> 
> 3) The whole thing reeks of a test that some are doomed to fail by predetermination, i.e. they were born into evil hearts. Others are doomed to fail by their gifts, such as myself, if I am wrong in my skepticism on faith. Still others are doomed to failure because they believed, but not in the right God. Others are born to succeed because they are born with the open mind to take things at face value and were lucky enough to be shown the correct God either through nature, discovering it for themselves, or nurture, in that their family and friends brought them to the fold. The worst part of it is that there's way to study for this test. Sure, some could snarkily point to the Bible and say, "Right there's your manual..." But how do you know that it is the right one amongst the myriad texts out there, each of which have their own claims, of same substantive value, to being the truth. How can one ever hope to separate the wheat from the chaff in one lifetime, in order to come proper to the deity upon their death? Or to be reincarnated with an improved station as opposed to punishment of lower station for not getting it right.
> 
> It seems unimaginably cruel, to me as a human, for a deity to hide behind a veil of mystery, demand faith, and punish doubt, without giving the majority of their flock an honest go at getting it right. But then there's that whole forgiveness thing, again, which says that I might yet be okay. I like the idea of being okay, but it invalidates everything that came before it if I get to walk in with people of faith, after having been a skeptic most of my life, and rarely having lived the straight and narrow.





> but it invalidates everything that came before it if I get to walk in with people of faith, after having been a skeptic most of my life, and rarely having lived the straight and narrow.



You're missing the point and it's a point that makes Christianity different than any other religion in the world.

All the others are merit based on what you have done and no one knows until the end if they merit acceptance into Heaven.  

Only Christianity makes the claim that it's a personal relationship, and one in which the acceptance is guaranteed up front(and here's the important point) not because it's based on your merits(what you have or have not done), but on what Christ as God incarnate has done.

This is what sooooo many people fail to understand.  It ain't about you and what you have done.  It's about 
God and what he has done.  

It's a relationship just as marriage where the acceptance comes up front.  To everyone out there God has said "I do."  It's up to them to say "I do." Or " I don't."


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> You're missing the point and it's a point that makes Christianity different than any other religion in the world.
> 
> All the others are merit based on what you have done and no one knows until the end if they merit acceptance into Heaven.
> 
> Only Christianity makes the claim that it's a personal relationship, and one in which the acceptance is guaranteed up front(and here's the important point) not because it's based on your merits(what you have or have not done), but on what Christ as God incarnate has done.
> 
> This is what sooooo many people fail to understand.  It ain't about you and what you have done.  It's about
> God and what he has done.
> 
> It's a relationship just as marriage where the acceptance comes up front.  To everyone out there God has said "I do."  It's up to them to say "I do." Or " I don't."



So murder is okay if you talk to Jesus about it afterwards?


----------



## ambush80

SemperFiDawg said:


> You're missing the point and it's a point that makes Christianity different than any other religion in the world.
> 
> All the others are merit based on what you have done and no one knows until the end if they merit acceptance into Heaven.
> 
> Only Christianity makes the claim that it's a personal relationship, and one in which the acceptance is guaranteed up front(and here's the important point) not because it's based on your merits(what you have or have not done), but on what Christ as God incarnate has done.
> 
> This is what sooooo many people fail to understand.  It ain't about you and what you have done.  It's about
> God and what he has done.
> 
> It's a relationship just as marriage where the acceptance comes up front.  To everyone out there God has said "I do."  It's up to them to say "I do." Or " I don't."



Why do you guys think that this argument holds any water:  "No, no. Christianity is BETTER because you don't have to do anything but declare Jesus Christ is Lord."

First, why would this prove that it's at all true?

Secondly, if I made a claim about religion that is EVEN EASIER to follow than Christianity would that it make it more likely to be true?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> So murder is okay if you talk to Jesus about it afterwards?



By the way, that wasn't an attack, that was a legitimate question given the premise you laid out. 

If acceptance is guaranteed, and merit doesn't matter, then that means that Hitler and every other "Christian" who committed horrible acts is in Heaven.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> So murder is okay if you talk to Jesus about it afterwards?



There's more to it than just talk.  Commitment I think is a better term, but yes, no sin is unpardonable.  Paul wrote 1/3 to 1/2 the New Testament yet he was an accomplice in Stephens murder and was one his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there when God chose him.  Again it's not based on your actions, but his.

I know this is counter intuitive.  No doubt about it, but it's never the less what the Bible teaches, and if you think about it, it has major upside.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> By the way, that wasn't an attack, that was a legitimate question given the premise you laid out.
> 
> If acceptance is guaranteed, and merit doesn't matter, then that means that Hitler and every other "Christian" who committed horrible acts is in Heaven.



I know.  I don't worry about attacks from you, just very hard questions, like this one.

Firstly I would place serious doubts on whether Hitler was anything other than CINO.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

ambush80 said:


> Why do you guys think that this argument holds any water:  "No, no. Christianity is BETTER because you don't have to do anything but declare Jesus Christ is Lord."
> 
> First, why would this prove that it's at all true?
> 
> Secondly, if I made a claim about religion that is EVEN EASIER to follow than Christianity would that it make it more likely to be true?



Never said this statement was better, easier or proved true the validity of God.  I simply said it sets Christianity apart from every other religion.


----------



## ambush80

SemperFiDawg said:


> Never said this statement was better, easier or proved true the validity of God.  I simply said it sets Christianity apart from every other religion.




And?


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> There's more to it than just talk.  Commitment I think is a better term, but yes, no sin is unpardonable.  Paul wrote 1/3 to 1/2 the New Testament yet he was an accomplice in Stephens murder and was one his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there when God chose him.  Again it's not based on your actions, but his.
> 
> I know this is counter intuitive.  No doubt about it, but it's never the less what the Bible teaches, and if you think about it, it has major upside.



It does, it speaks to the fallible nature of man. 

Still, by the concept displayed here, there's no need for the 10 commandments to exist, let alone try to follow them.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> I know.  I don't worry about attacks from you, just very hard questions, like this one.
> 
> Firstly I would place serious doubts on whether Hitler was anything other than CINO.



Well, that opens up a can of worms I thought about on my way home. You say he's a CINO, and I don't disagree, but nearly every Christian I know has said that about another set of Christians. I doubt, if they're all true, that I've ever actually met a real Christian. 

Like in the Army, we were always told, when you get to the real Army that things won't be this easy. I spent 3 years with US Army on my chest and was lead to believe that I had never really been in the real Army.


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> You're missing the point and it's a point that makes Christianity different than any other religion in the world.
> 
> All the others are merit based on what you have done and no one knows until the end if they merit acceptance into Heaven.
> 
> Only Christianity makes the claim that it's a personal relationship, and one in which the acceptance is guaranteed up front(and here's the important point) not because it's based on your merits(what you have or have not done), but on what Christ as God incarnate has done.
> 
> This is what sooooo many people fail to understand.  It ain't about you and what you have done.  It's about
> God and what he has done.
> 
> It's a relationship just as marriage where the acceptance comes up front.  To everyone out there God has said "I do."  It's up to them to say "I do." Or " I don't."


In my mind, this -


> This is what sooooo many people fail to understand.  It ain't about you and what you have done.  It's about God and what he has done.


Contradicts this -


> It's a relationship just as marriage where the acceptance comes up front.  To everyone out there God has said "I do."  It's up to them to say "I do." Or " I don't."


This "gift" that supposedly God gives us is completely dependent on one saying "I do". 
So it is 100 % dependent on one doing something and that is saying "I do".
Not to mention the requirements there are after that point.
Another contradiction would be -


> and one in which the acceptance is guaranteed up front(and here's the important point) not because it's based on your merits(what you have or have not done), but on what Christ as God incarnate has done


If the acceptance is GUARANTEED up front and what you do or don't do doesn't matter, why is repentance required?
Isnt that something you have to do or the guarantee is null and void?


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Well, that opens up a can of worms I thought about on my way home. You say he's a CINO, and I don't disagree, but nearly every Christian I know has said that about another set of Christians. I doubt, if they're all true, that I've ever actually met a real Christian.
> 
> Like in the Army, we were always told, when you get to the real Army that things won't be this easy. I spent 3 years with US Army on my chest and was lead to believe that I had never really been in the real Army.




Here's the test I use to determine if Christians are who they claim to be.  It may not identify all of them, but the ones it does I'm pretty sure about.

Again not mine

John 13:35

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”


----------



## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> In my mind, this -
> 
> Contradicts this -
> 
> This "gift" that supposedly God gives us is completely dependent on one saying "I do".
> So it is 100 % dependent on one doing something and that is saying "I do".
> Not to mention the requirements there are after that point.
> Another contradiction would be -
> 
> If the acceptance is GUARANTEED up front and what you do or don't do doesn't matter, why is repentance required?
> Isnt that something you have to do or the guarantee is null and void?




The point was it isn't merit based.  

The requirements after that are no different than those that frame any healthy relationship.  

As far as repentance, that would depend on what your definition of repentance is.


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> The point was it isn't merit based.
> 
> The requirements after that are no different than those that frame any healthy relationship.
> 
> As far as repentance, that would depend on what your definition of repentance is.





> The requirements after that are no different than those that frame any healthy relationship.





> The point was it isn't merit based.


You sure?
merit 
1.To earn; deserve.
2.To be worthy or deserving
How do you earn it or be worthy of it? 
Believe?
If it wasn't merit based everyone regardless of whether they earned it or deserved it or not would be covered.
If it wasn't merit based there would be no need for he11.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

ambush80 said:


> And?



Just re- read it.  You'll get it.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> You sure?
> merit
> 1.To earn; deserve.
> 2.To be worthy or deserving
> How do you earn it or be worthy of it?
> Believe?
> If it wasn't merit based everyone regardless of whether they earned it or deserved it or not would be covered.
> If it wasn't merit based there would be no need for he11.



Huh?  I think you need to go back and start at the beginning of mine and Stripes conversation.  You missed something somewhere unless you're implying that to earn something (merit based) is the same thing as accepting a gift (one bought and paid for by another).


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> Huh?  I think you need to go back and start at the beginning of mine and Stripes conversation.  You missed something somewhere unless you're implying that to earn something (merit based) is the same thing as accepting a gift (one bought and paid for by another).


I don't think I missed anything.
Is a gift a gift if I have to do something (believe,worship) or you take it back and punish me?


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> Nah, My parents didn't become thumpers til they moved down here.  It's my dad who went most off the deep end.  My mom is still pretty progressive.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah.  For a while I still believed in the Debbil and demons and He11. Gosh, probably into college.  That stuff is like a rusted on nut when it gets pounded into you as a kid;  hard to extract.  My dad used to tell us that kids are like new clay.  You can put things into it now but when it gets old and hardened, that stuff stays and can't be taken out.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I try to live like there are no re-do's.
> 
> “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
> 
> ― Mark Twain
> 
> 
> 
> I suppose I would get on an airplane without fully understanding The Bernoulli Principle or how jet propultion works.  I feel better that I know some about those things.
> 
> How many people have drunk a Mountain Dew without knowing what's in it?  Don't you think you should know?
> 
> I can't really understand why people don't place a premium on self examination and curiosity in general.  I think sometimes they are afraid of what they may have found when they tried it.



That's interesting.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> I don't think I missed anything.
> Is a gift a gift if I have to do something (believe,worship) or you take it back and punish me?



Yeah.  I think you are.  

I give you a book.  Does the fact you have to read it to glean anything from it make it not a gift?

I give you a car.  Does the fact you have to drive it make it not a gift?

A woman says "I do." to a wedding proposal.  Does her having to say " I do." in any way negate the fact that from just the proposal itself acceptance is inherently implied on the proposers behalf?  Of course not.  Acceptance is implied with the invitation.


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> Yeah.  I think you are.
> 
> I give you a book.  Does the fact you have to read it to glean anything from it make it not a gift?
> 
> I give you a car.  Does the fact you have to drive it make it not a gift?
> 
> A woman says "I do." to a wedding proposal.  Does her having to say " I do." in any way negate the fact that from just the proposal itself acceptance is inherently implied on the proposers behalf?  Of course not.  Acceptance is implied with the invitation.


You keep leaving out the penalty part of it.
If the woman says "I don't" to my proposal is it ok for me to chain her in my basement and torture her until one of us dies?

A gift is given freely with no expectation of anything in return. That's what makes it a gift.


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## bullethead

WaltL1 said:


> You keep leaving out the penalty part of it.
> If the woman says "I don't" to my proposal is it ok for me to chain her in my basement and torture her until one of us dies?
> 
> A gift is given freely with no expectation of anything in return. That's what makes it a gift.


Spot on Walt.
A gift is given without stipulations or strings attached. Once given it is up to the receiver to decide whether they will accept it, like the gift, or want to use it even if they decide to keep it.

Eternal jail time is not included if you choose to not to wear the thoughtful but unwanted sweater Aunt Martha has knitted you every year since your 5th birthday.


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## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> You keep leaving out the penalty part of it.
> If the woman says "I don't" to my proposal is it ok for me to chain her in my basement and torture her until one of us dies?
> 
> A gift is given freely with no expectation of anything in return. That's what makes it a gift.



The "penalty part" has absolutely no bearing on salvation being free or merit based, the latter  being your original stance.


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## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> It does, it speaks to the fallible nature of man.
> 
> Still, by the concept displayed here, there's no need for the 10 commandments to exist, let alone try to follow them.



I don't follow.  Can you elaborate a bit.


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> The "penalty part" has absolutely no bearing on salvation being free or merit based, the latter  being your original stance.


Of course it does.
A gift or free requires nothing in return.
If the gift is dependent on you doing something ie worshipping or believing or it gets taken back then it is merit based. 
Getting it taken back is a penalty for not earning or deserving it. Meriting it.
If you drive off the lot in a car for no money down it wasn't a gift because if you don't make the payments the penalty is getting it taken back.


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## bullethead

Israel said:


> That's if the gift is seen as entrance into an eternal amusement park.
> If the gift can be seen to be what is arguably implicit in this:
> And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
> Then, if one deems the knowing to be of no consequence or value, he has every "right" to leave the gift...hanging...so to speak.
> But as with the sweater Aunt Martha did knit, he may discover there's a cold of which he could not have previously imagined that could purpose a thread from a Reindeer emblazoned monstrosity to now be a comfort.
> 
> But, if you don't yet know the unutterable frailty of a naked soul, you can.


Or not.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> Of course it does.
> A gift or free requires nothing in return.
> If the gift is dependent on you doing something ie worshipping or believing or it gets taken back then it is merit based.
> Getting it taken back is a penalty for not earning or deserving it. Meriting it.
> If you drive off the lot in a car for no money down it wasn't a gift because if you don't make the payments the penalty is getting it taken back.





> If the gift is dependent on you doing something ie worshipping or believing or it gets taken back then it is merit based.



This is kinda the jist of it I guess, and also what I don't understand.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I buy you a gift or invite you to a party, your stance is because you actually have *to accept* the gift or invite, that means it's based on your merit.  

As to the point of "getting it taken back" , once the gift, offer, invite  is accepted it's eternal because again. It's not based on what you do(merit), it's based on what Christ did.  You may accept it or reject it, but it's not earned.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> I don't follow.  Can you elaborate a bit.



I don't know which part you're asking about. 

Man being fallible? The evidence of that is all around you, and is a cornerstone of the new covenant, I thought. 

As to the 10 Commandments being pointless? Well, if no sin is unpardonable then there should only be one commandment for getting into heaven. "Be repentant." Because if there's no penalties for committing a crime, then there's no point in anything being decreed as criminal, especially if it's presumed as a given that man isn't going to be able to be anything BUT criminal. 

I know you're going to break the vase, but I'm going to tell you that it's against the house rules, and I'm going to tell you also about the punishments for breaking that vase, but when you do break the vase, I'll forgive you anyway and welcome you with open arms. The preface of the rules and punishments is just a lot of unnecessary exposition if the end result is the same regardless of your performance. 

But it does allow the author to paint God as an eternally forgiving being, if you go through the ordeal of writing the whole thing out. 

As to the upside, yeah, there's a huge one. It wins you converts because they know they aren't perfect, and the book lays out that you're expected to not be perfect, and that forgiveness will come to you through grace, according to some of your brethren as of late on here, rather than merit. It's a beautifully written work and it does speak to both the fallible nature of man, as well as their desire for absolution for their transgressions.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I don't know which part you're asking about.
> 
> Man being fallible? The evidence of that is all around you, and is a cornerstone of the new covenant, I thought.
> 
> As to the 10 Commandments being pointless? Well, if no sin is unpardonable then there should only be one commandment for getting into heaven. "Be repentant." Because if there's no penalties for committing a crime, then there's no point in anything being decreed as criminal, especially if it's presumed as a given that man isn't going to be able to be anything BUT criminal.
> 
> I know you're going to break the vase, but I'm going to tell you that it's against the house rules, and I'm going to tell you also about the punishments for breaking that vase, but when you do break the vase, I'll forgive you anyway and welcome you with open arms. The preface of the rules and punishments is just a lot of unnecessary exposition if the end result is the same regardless of your performance.
> 
> But it does allow the author to paint God as an eternally forgiving being, if you go through the ordeal of writing the whole thing out.
> 
> As to the upside, yeah, there's a huge one. It wins you converts because they know they aren't perfect, and the book lays out that you're expected to not be perfect, and that forgiveness will come to you through grace, according to some of your brethren as of late on here, rather than merit. It's a beautifully written work and it does speak to both the fallible nature of man, as well as their desire for absolution for their transgressions.




OK I follow you now.


> As to the 10 Commandments being pointless? Well, if no sin is unpardonable then there should only be one commandment for getting into heaven.



And that is exactly what he did.  He condensed the entire Law into one statement when he was asked which law was the greatest.  He said Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, which is exactly what you said with "be repentant", so you nailed it albeit you came at it from a logical standpoint.

Remember the point of the law was primarily to reinforce and ratify to people what they intuitively know; murder is wrong, lying is wrong, etc. , and that because no one is perfect everyone needs a savior.

Paul says that without the Law, there is no guilt, and that makes sense.  No law on the books, then I ain't broke it, so the fact that it ratified or codified what was conscious but not written is very important.

As to the upside, there's much more.

It's fair, whereas if it was merit based it wouldn't be.  If it was merit based the haves in life would be able to meet it much easier than the have nots.  As it's based on grace and acceptance up front that means even a penniless, mute quadriplegic can gain acceptance, because it's based only on volition/free will only.  This also excludes anyone doing it for you or forcing you into it.   It's personal and therefore commands and demands the utmost in self responsibility.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> OK I follow you now.
> 
> 
> And that is exactly what he did.  He condensed the entire Law into one statement when he was asked which law was the greatest.  He said Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, which is exactly what you said with "be repentant", so you nailed it albeit you came at it from a logical standpoint.
> 
> Remember the point of the law was primarily to reinforce and ratify to people what they intuitively know; murder is wrong, lying is wrong, etc. , and that because no one is perfect everyone needs a savior.
> 
> Paul says that without the Law, there is no guilt, and that makes sense.  No law on the books, then I ain't broke it, so the fact that it ratified or codified what was conscious but not written is very important.
> 
> As to the upside, there's much more.
> 
> It's fair, whereas if it was merit based it wouldn't be.  If it was merit based the haves in life would be able to meet it much easier than the have nots.  As it's based on grace and acceptance up front that means even a penniless, mute quadriplegic can gain acceptance, because it's based only on volition/free will only.  This also excludes anyone doing it for you or forcing you into it.   It's personal and therefore commands and demands the utmost in self responsibility.



If there's no punishment, or consequence, then there's no harm, and the foul was meaningless to begin with. 

If all that were there was the OT, then that would make logical sense. There's a set of laws to follow, and clear punishments for failure. Punishments demonstrate that the fouls mean something because each infraction has a specific _cost_. With the NT, supposedly wiping away the Old, and the law being "condensed," as you put it, into a frame of mind rather than proscription of acts then there's no need to have the other laws remain on the books. Since, again as you said it, most of humanity already knows the laws intrinsically, and I agree that they do except that it's taught to them instead of instantly understood from birth, then the documentation of them is moot, especially since there's no punishment for failure, which we all know we would do anyway with the ones that don't really matter, IMO. Like honoring your mother and father, for example, is an idiotic commandment. Honor is earned, not bestowed. If my mother or father were drug addicts who beat me mercilessly, there is no reason to honor them for anything. Murder we can all agree is something that most of us agree with through our upbringing, even those not in Christian or even other religious homes. Very few of us break that commandment, and even if we did, it would be forgiven, whether we racked ourselves with guilt or not, if we were repentantly minded for it. 

Can you make penance without guilt? Good question and it's an avenue that I haven't explored until now, so I'll get back to you on that. But here's what I DO know about guilt. It makes you seek absolution for it. The quickest way is to go to a church and confess your sins, or pray for your forgiveness. Well, I guess the quickest would be to fall to your knees and pray where you are, but I digress. One of the quickest ways is to seek out a priest and a church and to go through that route of spiritual cleansing, and that, I think, was the main goal of leaving the old laws on the books. They wanted you to know the laws, because a law you break through ignorance isn't one you carry guilt over, to know the punishments so that A) you seek them out and perhaps drop a little in the collection plate along the way (which also opened the gates for buying salvation in older days), and B) you seek Jesus out, and who better to answer your questions, which everyone has, about Jesus, God and the Bible than the Church? My order of that list may be backwards, because why would you go to church except to seek a deeper understanding of Jesus, who you must at least know of, or be curious about, in order to know to go there in the first place. 

It's not fair. Not by a long shot. It's only fair if you take Day Trip's position that all religions are worshiping the same God through their own understanding, but even then you get deviance in rites/rituals as well as proscriptions and their associate punishments, if any. If a Buddhist doesn't know that he's supposed to seek Jesus out and be repentant to Him, rather than to the Buddha, and the Buddhist then isn't repentant to the right person, then he burns for it. Or is general repentance enough for Jesus? I doubt it, because, and I paraphrase Jesus' own words, only through Him can one come to God. See? The path isn't as wide, or as fair as we would believe. 

But I do take your meaning of the fairness of grace, because if theft is a sin, and you have to steal to survive, then you have a difficult decision to make. Do you knowingly let yourself starve to death, which I would consider tantamount to suicide but for religious reasons, or do you steal what you need to eat? Well, what's the line, then, between stealing to survive, which is synonymous with comfort, and stealing to be more comfortable? In truth, according to the last words I've read on here, neither are sins, really, and you can do both, so long as you're sorry for it. 

Oh, but someone is forcing you into it, you just don't see the rod because it's covered in pretty, and soft, fur. The rod is the result of being unrepentant, and you wouldn't know to be repentant if A) they didn't tell you what it was that you did was wrong (OT), and B) tell you that to save your soul that you had to be repentant, and C) tell you that you're going to sin anyway, but that Jesus will forgive all if you repent. Just because you can't see the person who's forcing you, the authors of the passages being references, and just because the rod is covered in "love" and "understanding" doesn't mean that you're not being coerced into doing something you might not otherwise do. Step outside of your faith for a second, and ask yourself if you would repent for taking the Lord's name in vain provided that you didn't believe in Him in the first place? I'm using the lesser sins here, because they are the ones that are exclusive to your faith. Would you feel guilty for working on a Sunday, or skipping church, if the Bible didn't first tell you that it was a sin? 

I highly doubt it. But here's the thing, I'm repentant for my transgressions, well mostly. The difference is that I'm repentant to the person, or people, that I've given offense. Some of my "sins" have been committed because they were justifiable to my conscience. I honor people when they deserve it, I claim ownership over my own body, so I treat it with the respect it deserves (mostly), and I don't fret about the words that come out of my mouth, unless they offend someone sitting close enough to me to be offended. I don't murder people, but I do believe that killing can be justified in certain situations, and I make a point to be thankful for what I have and what I receive, but to the people who played an observable part in making it happen. 

The "ah-ha" moment for me, with regards to religion, came when I realized that I could get to nearly the same moral code using logic and reason, and the realization that not everyone could do that. So, the rod and the staff came into play, in order to stabilize society with, as you say, codified rules that few would argue with to begin with, and those that did could be avoided if they were brought up in the church very young, and "love the sinner"-ed if they chose not to subscribe anyway. 

Sorry for being so long winded.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

Man how do you type that fast and work.  Gonna be a minute on this one


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Man how do you type that fast and work.  Gonna be a minute on this one



No worries. I've taught myself to type the proper way, using all 8 fingers, and that speeds things up considerably. 

That, and I just cashed in my morning break.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

Ok short n sweet.  Try to hit your main point which I take to be this.

If there's no punishment, then there's no foul so what's the point in the first place or vice versa: no foul so no punishment, what's the point.  And you are correct.  If those both hold true it's a giant shell game or bait and switch.

But both assumptions are incorrect.

There's a foul and a punishment.

Remember the Law just codified what's already in your conscious: murder, rape, lying, jealousy, etc all wrong.  Who hasn't done one of those?  There's the foul.


----------



## StriperrHunterr

SemperFiDawg said:


> Ok short n sweet.  Try to hit your main point which I take to be this.
> 
> If there's no punishment, then there's no foul so what's the point in the first place or vice versa: no foul so no punishment, what's the point.  And you are correct.  If those both hold true it's a giant shell game or bait and switch.
> 
> But both assumptions are incorrect.
> 
> There's a foul and a punishment.
> 
> Remember the Law just codified what's already in your conscious: murder, rape, lying, jealousy, etc all wrong.  Who hasn't done one of those?  There's the foul.



Where's the punishment? If I sin with a repentant heart, and salvation isn't merit based, rather wholly dependent on repentance, then I don't see it. 

Unless your position is that the guilt you feel is the punishment?


----------



## WaltL1

SemperFiDawg said:


> This is kinda the jist of it I guess, and also what I don't understand.
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I buy you a gift or invite you to a party, your stance is because you actually have *to accept* the gift or invite, that means it's based on your merit.
> 
> As to the point of "getting it taken back" , once the gift, offer, invite  is accepted it's eternal because again. It's not based on what you do(merit), it's based on what Christ did.  You may accept it or reject it, but it's not earned.





> Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I buy you a gift or invite you to a party, your stance is because you actually have *to accept* the gift or invite, that means it's based on your merit.


Nope.
Here's the difference.
You accept Gods gift. Is that it? You are going to Heaven now? REGARDLESS of what you do or don't do after that point?


----------



## SemperFiDawg

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Where's the punishment?



OK, but for the sake of clarity, when you speak of punishment are you speaking of the punishment for a believer who sins after accepting Christ or as a non believer who has rejected Christ.  It's important for me to to distinguish which concept you are speaking of, or both?


----------



## SemperFiDawg

WaltL1 said:


> Nope.
> Here's the difference.
> You accept Gods gift. Is that it? You are going to Heaven now? REGARDLESS of what you do or don't do after that point?



Yes. Because once again it's NOT based on what you do, will do or even have done.


----------

