Why am I not surprised? :rolleyes: You might want to check out James 2:13 which reads, in the King James Version, “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment”, or, in the NIV version, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” That goes against the sentiment you posted in a devotional last winter which read, in part, “He who shows mercy is a traitor to Christ.”
CJ
Guin, this is an opinion all too often expressed by non-Christians, but it’s far more disturbing when I hear this charge leveled by one raised in faith.
God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, is Good. The very definition of, in fact. There can be no superior standard by which to measure, for if there were, that would be the superior ‘God’. We know good by looking to Him, we know bad by looking anywhere else. Bad cannot exist apart from Good; it is a corruption of Good. Bad, by definition, is not good. On the contrary, one never defines good as not bad; good is the superior, primary standard.
Your fear that God could be revealed, potentially, as “a sadistic bastard who enjoys tormenting people” is clearly contradictory. You are saying, at one and the same time, that God finds good something which you abhor, and you then follow through with the implied claim to superior standards! How do you, the created one, even think that your standards could meet, much less exceed, God’s? Again, when you charge God with “doom[ing] someone to Hell for believing in…evolution” what you are really saying is two things, both in error. First, you are suggesting that God is what you (in the broader sense) declare Him to be (in contradiction to what He declares Himself to be)and two, declaring your values, judgment, standard to be superior to His. Truly, this cannot be. Believing the created is greater than the Creator is a philosophical fallacy.
And by the way, speaking as a ‘fundie’ Christian, I don’t believe God ‘dooms’ anyone to hell, nor does the Bible, in verse after verse after verse, state so. God gave the law to condemn sin -
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:20
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Rom 3:24
Those who reject God’s grace are still under law, which, the Bible clearly states, condemns each man who fails in the single part, and still cannot impart righteousness. Abraham was credited with righteousness hundreds of years before Moses received the Ten Commandments. Why? Because he believed God.
As for those who never hear of the Word -
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.
Rom 2:14-15
Truly, Guin, you’re on this board far too often to fall for such baseless accusations against God. You can count on both hands and feet, and probably more digits than that, the number of hostile agnostics and atheists on this board, who, despite the “preaching of the word”, in the limited context available, reject it, over and over and over again. Yet, God, through His people, keeps sending the word, that some might hear. When God finally has had enough, will some still cry “unfair”? Undoubtedly. The witnesses to rebut will be more convincing. Sadly.
NaSultainne
My whole point in all this is I protest the horrible witness that is given in the name of trying to bring people to God. It is a disgusting scare tactic and doesn’t work on people anymore. It makes the Christian religion look heartless and self-righteous. I can threaten my children and get them to do what I want, or I can love them and get them to want what I want. The witness should be about God’s love, not the consequences of being ignorant of that love. I love you, come to me; if you don’t, you’re fried, is a ghastly message. When someone in a setting like SDMB quotes a verse about a narrow gate and it says that not many will make it and oh by the way, Jesus loves you; it is contradictory. That’s not going to having a crowd flocking to the narrow gate.
You can’t tell someone a story and expect everyone to immediately fall to their knees and know that everything you say is true. All you can do is plant a seed and wait for God to touch that person and make it grow. I cannot “convert” anyone, only God can. You are lacking in your own faith and belief if you think it is up to man. It is up to God. When I first accepted God, it was because it sounded good and I wanted what it promised. That was purely an emotional, selfish choice, not related to any real level of belief. I would have never even made it that far if I had felt threatened by that same God. Belief, knowledge and faith were a gradual process over literally years. I wasn’t somehow wiser than someone who doesn’t know God. I got the opportunity to know God because I was raised to be open to it. I was born into the right family and I had the right life experiences that made it possible for me. I WAS LUCKY. Many people are not. If I witness to someone and the witness contains anything more than God’s love and they turn away, they have not rejected God because they don’t understand. I have sinned against God for delivering the wrong message. You can only reject God once you know him. These people do not know him because the Christian witness is not a good one.
To deny the evolutionary process also is a poor witness. Many somehow think it is contrary to God’s existence, rather than just thinking “oh, so that’s how he did that.” Evolution is a proven fact and when you preach against it, you are eliminating a huge group of people who know that science doesn’t lie and it sounds like the Christian is. I have no fear that God is a sadistic bastard. You are calling Guin on believing that her standards are superior or for having questions. This type of thing, of control, is a dispicable part of Christianity which somehow indicates that you can’t think for yourself and question things that are contradictory. God didn’t indicate he wanted a robotic parrot. He gave us free will and sharp minds, so we could learn, grow and decide things for ourselves. If I think something about my religion is wrong, that is not turning away from God, it is acknowleging that religion is fallible. I don’t think that God is contradictory, but I think religion is representing him that way. I have no doubt of his goodness, because he is the only relevant standard of goodness. The teachings in the Bible don’t always reflect that. Christians don’t always reflect that. You will never get a non-believer to really hear you by quoting Bible verses. They will never be convinced by your Bible knowledge. You might get the approval of other believers who think you really know your Bible, but you’re only going to get heavy sighs and rolled eyes from the non-believer. Quoting a book with a dubious background and contradictory facts just creates more questions. Questioning the Bible is not questioning God. Man made the Bible and questions of interpretation and doubt are not reflections of your faith in God.
Again, I don’t question God’s integrity or have any doubts about his love. I question the sincerity, love and compassion of the group that has claimed him for their own and is supposed to reflect him in the most beautiful way. It is not wrong to question religion, which often has nothing to do with God, and I do question it. Religion is not worshipped or at least not supposed to be. God is.
God is love and mercy. He is also just.
I don’t pretend to know all about that, but I trust He will be fair, after all-mercy is supposed to triumph over judgment.
And that is what I need, mercy.
The mpore merciful we are to others, the more He will be to us, as I understand it.
I got "saved"in 1978 after reading The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey.
I’d never heard of the "rapture"before, and I realized I didn’t want to be left behind.
It was that simple, nobody ever witnessed to me.
I read a lot after that, and learned more.
I took me 4 years to find a church, then.
The way I learned it; we are all born sinful (but children and babies do not go to Hell).
Jesus paid our price, by his death and resurrection.
So ALL we need to do is accept it.
I hope that explains my personal views on it,I am certainly no expert on God or the Bible.
Regarding Nasultainne - I have made no statements regarding that conversation.
I dunno about anyone else, this kind of rationale always sounded a bit too much like “Caesar can do no wrong,” for my tastes.
Ssshh…You better not let Caesar hear you saying that.
Regarding Nasultaine, he is a typical egotistical maniac that assume his personal state of rightiousness and condems those who disagree. God is “good”, and “love” say you" Take a journey through Deuteronomy and the following two or three books. Count the number instances that Jahweh ordered The Tribes to enter cities and town and desroy all living thins there is no description of these people othere than they have selected anothe god to wordhip other than Yahweh. Yahweh uses the words to kill every man, woman and childBy the time you are three book later hundreds of thousands of people are slaughted at the command of god. And this Nasultaine is the entity that you are preparing yourself with whom you will spend your eternity?
Original sin is a myth as proved by the words of Jesus. When Jesus healed the blind man and was asked by his desciples if the man was blind because he had sinned Jesus replied that no, the man was not born in sin and neither were his parents. Jesus could not have meant that these were the only non-sinners in the world. Then Jesus saystthat he was born blind so that he could see the power of the lord when he was healed. This is a just and honorable entity? Live a life in squalor just so you could make him see the glory of god? This is intentional cruelty and brutality. Nasaltaine speaks as if anything God did was loving , just and good, such as slaughtering hundreds of thousand of human beings, men women and children What ciould a babe in arms have done to deserve to have her life taken, brutally, by the act of a monster professing himself the ultimate good?.
When the big shp comes down from the sky to take you away Nasulataine, then it is good riddance to you forever. I will not only not spend eternity with that violent monster you adore with fascist fanaticism, but I will conspire to and execute a plan to get that bastard god and jam his slimy ass through a wood chipper.
somebody get the calming powder!
:o
NaSultainne, well, then, why did God create me as He did?
He made me, with my curiosity and my thirst for knowledge and truth and wisdom. He knows what I am and how I feel.
And for Him to throw me into a Pit because I will not kiss ass of people who are cruel and hateful, well, I’m sorry. That FEELS wrong to me.
The God you profess to worship seems like a kind of Might Makes Right kind of God. And that’s just…wrong.
Yeah, God sends his word…through people who spit on others and call people foul and degenerate and traitors when they are kind and good. I have no problem with God…but some of his followers piss me off big time.
NaSultaine So, how’s that witness workin’ for you today?
My dear I can only say that my concept of heaven is right where I am. The Buhdists who practice omeditation to cleanse the souls so that they can get off the repeating cycle of a miserable existence is escapism to me. Why project an existence in lala land, heaven of those words sound better, rather than perfect this one. One who compalins abnd fears the herafter and wraps themselves in a shivering buncle of habitual obedient ritual are missing the point. But thwere is a lesson here. propaganda works. The soul can be effectivley slaion by th eneglect it suffers when one is dogmatically and ignorantly terrified into certain activities that any god would not just laugh at she would snigger at the stupidity. There is nothing wrong with your concept of heaven and I do not condem you for your beliefs for the trivial reason that I have other beliefs. I do sense a bit of haughtiness and arrogance, and maybe I err, but to compare Pagan heaven with a christian heaven with the implication that the christian one is better, well ,like I said it sounds uppity, snobbish. But what the heck even all that isn’t something to avoid or to purge wourself of. Myself, I admire people, especially women, that can have a concept of themselves as strong and are able to recognize something fundamental about themselves as being special.
whew!
the calming powder seems to have worked.
Moderator’s Note: Mhernan, please read this thread (located at the top of the Great Debates forum). Direct personal insults of other posters or “flaming” are not permitted in Great Debates.
To Guinastasia - hey I am forming a plan to have a special kind of greeting for yahweh, the murderer of men, women and children when he arrives to take his fascist, violent and brutal followers away forever (like our mutual colleague Naslataine) . Now doesn’t that sound exciting? Perhaps we can do lunch sometime and work out a schedule. and complete the details. How does the concept of introducing Yahweh to the inner workings of a wood chipper sound to you?
that is honestly not much of a contribution to this thread.
Are there no instances in the Bible where you find God to be good?
vanilla, that’s a very weak argument for a God that’s supposed to be perfect good. “Don’t you think he did anything nice?”
Supposedly, God is perfect good. If we can find even ONE instance in which he did something evil, we disprove the perfect good attribute. But when we do find something that looks pretty evil to us, it’s explained away by saying that God is Good, therefore all God does is Good, even if it looks Evil to us poor, imperfect creatures.
Using that logic, I can prove Stalin was a Buddhist monk simply by defining the term “Buddhist monk” to mean “what Stalin is”.
I was replying to the poster above me,who is rather rabid about his dislike of God.
I’ve always had a problem with the book of Job, myself.
i hope that everyone recognized my discussion of god was that god described in the bible and particularly Deuteronomy and following books. Ordering humans to slaughter humans, including men, women and children, and to assist them in that slaughter, and to demand the most degrading kind of worship, obedience and unquestioned loyalty under the threat of death for fauilire does not deserve the slightest bit of empathy, kindness or even politeness, or the meagerest of recognition as a living entity. I am sure Jefdfery Dahlmer had his good moments, and Adolph Hitler was reputed to be loved by his friends and close associates and he had a German Sheperd dog, Blondi that he was frequently seen in joyful states of play and obvious love.
I am not particularly concerned with anyones differing concepts, beliefs and practices on religious grounds, but thee was a true evil spokesperson attempting to align opur souls and minds with evil. There was an evil meaness expressed in the most condescending manner. That spokeperson uttered evil and tyranical snot whn=en I happened to be reading the words. That kind of activity does not get praise from me. Th ewpords were uittered with convictionand for the purpose of shaming those who read the words to fear and obey in the same kind of direct and unambiguous manner that a junk yard dog expresses himslef to any who dare even walk past his space. the dog we know was trained by a human for a purpose, which was to protect the junk yard from those who might enter and steal, or conduct other mischief. The dog doesn’t hate, he just is trained to maximize the safety of his masters’ possessions. This is grossly different than one whp attempts to intimidate others into loving-through-fear, an entity that, as far as I am able to determine, has a future any further along the path of eternity than the nearest whirring wood chipper.