My first GD question, and yes, it's a religious one.

Great Debates
81

Yes, it says in the Bible that God is a jealous God; He hated it when people fell into worshipping idols, (which were not even alive) and evil practices.
I don’t have the scripture handy, but someone else may know of it.
God does love us like a parent loves a child.
Do you know any children that aren’t punished?

God is also a judge; would you want a judge to say, “okay, Mr. manson, go free, it would be cruel to put you in jail all your life>”
Well, manson was guilty, so guilty people must be punished. Same idea.

82

Guess if “Jim” takes that stance, there’s nothing I could say .
I’d have to prove to him the Bible was true and how could I do that? I’d have to go back and trace thru history everything that led to the writing of the Bible (those who know more about this would be better to talk to him )and even if I could prove it’s conistency, if “Jim” chose not to accept it as God’s word, then there’s nothing I could do except pray for him. Then of course, there’s the faith issue. If someone isn’t going to believe it, they’re just not going to believe it. All we as Christians can do is share it.

83

Thanks for the reply; I hope you didn’t mind me pressing this issue.

I think it’s fair to say that perhaps the majority of members here at the SDMB are a little like Jim and that most of them haven’t consciously chosen this stance - they don’t wilfully reject or hate the Bible or God, they simply have not been convinced by what has been presented to them.

84

—True Christians have had NDE’s and went to heaven and non Christans have had NDE’s and gone to hell.—

Heh. No. Non-christians have gone to THEIR religion’s version of heaven: or even glimpses into a next life of supposed reincarnation. Non-religious people have had all sorts of strange and very different experiences: but I’ve never heard of anyone experincing hell, or at least not any such breakdown between “true” christians (which I’m sure you can convieniently re-define if a “true” christian has a vision of hell) and non christians.

Of course, I think it’s most plausible that NDEs are pretty much wish-fulfilment experiences, so that makes perfect sense to me anyway.

85

Sure, Mangetout, I don’t mind. I guess there are a lot of people like “Jim” everywhere. Guess I shouldn’t be so emphatice sometimes in stating what I believe. But, of course, that’s what this thread was about to start with. Anyway, I’m just very concerned about people and feel the need to share with them. I realize there are many who just don’t see things this way.

86

Not saying I don’t believe you on this point, but do you have any sites for it? I’m very curious as to read what a NDE who experiences reincarnation. I mean…Isn’t that like going into the future? If it’s not, what happens to the “new” body when you are jerked back into the old one? Is it left without a soul?

Sorry 'bout the hijack…

87

Personally, I think what would help Jim (and people like him) is to hear about why you feel able to accept the Bible as true and authoritative and/or the circumstances that brought you to firmly believe in God.

88

Another slight hijack…

His4Ever, what do you think about the apocrapha (sp?) or the Nicean’s creed? Are these both slanders to God? The former was ripped out of the bible (was God’s word unholy?) and the latter was agreed upon 300 (or there around) years after Jesus died?

Of course, I could be wrong on both issues being the domain of Christians…

Personally, I think people can make a difference to doubters, Polycarp has changed my views on a number of different views (although I wouldn’t call myself a doubter per se).

89

Damn good point, Mange!

90

Reincarnation is a choice also. You don’t have to come back, but most do to finish what they started. When you have a NDE you are not “given” a new body. Your true form is no form at all. Just pure energy. Usually it is several years before one decides to return, sometimes hundreds of years. At that point you will plan your new physical life. Choose your parents, location and sex.
Then when the time arrives, enter your new body at birth or slightly before to began the process again. Many have memories of their pre-birth time and there is a web site on the subject.

91

Probably should explain here that it is possible in the spirit world to create for yourself a spirit body that looks like the one you just left. This is necessary if you are going to communicate with physical loved ones so they can recognize you. This is sometimes called the astral body. Some are so used to having a body that they keep their astral body most of the time. Any spiritual ghosts, appearances of loved ones, etc., is with the astral body.

92

I’m not sure how to answer this. I’ve never read the appocripha but I’m aware that the Protestansts don’t include it in their Bible. My understanding is that the tranlators, after careful study and prayer, came to the conclusion that this wasn’t part of God’s word. As to the Nicean creed, I’m ashamed to say I’m not sure what that is tho I’ve probably heard it. Just escapes my mind at the moment. If I heard it I might recognize it.

93

Hmm, I could try. I was raised up in church and taught the truths of the Bible in Sunday School class, vacation Bible school, etc. Don’t ask me why but I can’t ever remember questioning or doubting that there was a God. Would I have questioned it had I been raised differently? Possibly. I just can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe it. It just makes sense to me and is very logical. Of couse, I didn’t come to know Christ as my Saviour until I was around 20 yo. I’d had a mental belief all along but hadn’t been to church in years or thought much about God though I knew He existed. The Lord reached me through my first husband’s grandmother. Can’t remember the details now but she must have said enough to get me thinking. I started dreaming about dying and in my dreams I was trying to ask God’s forgiveness for my sins before I died. After I had a few of these, I started thinking hey what if I don’t have time to ask? So I proceeded to make sure and asked Jesus into my heart. First thing I wanted to do was to start attending church again. I started reading the Bible and also Christian books as I wondered about different things and the Lord used some of these books to answer my questions. They made sense to me and appeared to me to be compatibe with what the Bible said.

As I said, I’m hard pressed to remember a time I didn’t believe, although for a lot of years before actually becoming saved I mostly ignored the Lord. Can’t remember a time I didn’t believe the Bible to be His word so I can’t really tell you how I came to believe in God or accept His word as true. Now do I always live up to it or am I perfect? No of course not. When I falter and fail I ask forgiveness (1 John 1:9) and go on. And keep striving to be as I should. I’m just so glad that Jesus came and died for me that in believing in Him I have eternal life. It’s a joy to know Him.
Even though I feel rather isolated on this board, there are many many Christians who share these beliefs. Probably Joe_Cool and Jersey Diamond would be a couple from the board. People have sacrificed their lives for the gospel of Christ going to foreign lands because they know the people are lost without Him. Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against His church and they never will. I don’t know how else to explain it. It has the ring of truth deep in my soul. It has survived down through the centuries and people are still being won to Christ today all over the world.

Well that’s about the best I can do. I simply cannot ever agree with the beliefs that Lekatt presented here. Down in my spirit and soul I know that they’re wrong. I mean nothing against him personally. But I simply know from what the Bible says that what he says isn’t right. It just isn’t. That’s about all I can say. Everyone has to decide for themselves.

94

First, the words of the Nicene Creed (not "the Nicean’s Creed – it was the creed adopted at the Council of Nicaea, and is the traditional affirmation of faith used at the Lord’s Supper):

Second, an extensive discussion on the Apocrypha can be found here. In point of fact, the distinction between the Jewish Bible/Protestant Old Testament and the Orthodox/Catholic Old Testament is based on whether the books were known to exist in Hebrew, and is based on a choice made by rabbis in the First Century AD, ratified at a meeting in Jabneh (SE of Jerusalem). Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate version), went by the predilections of the Jewish rabbis, and Luther and others followed his lead. The other books were known in Greek (one of them has a Hebrew original which had been lost prior to 90 AD) and were included in the official Greek version of the Bible, the Septuagint. Between the early days of the church and about 1540, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Judith or I Maccabees belonged in the Bible as much as the Song of Solomon or Habakkuk did.

In response to your questions to me earlier, I wrote an earlier post which by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the vagaries of the SDMB server did not get posted to the board. But I do have some comments, which I will make in a separate post.

95

Please don’t get the idea that I’m trying to be arrogant or anything. If I come across that way, my apologies.

96

[Channelling Jim]
You say you ‘know’ Jesus?
Could you describe the relationship?
Have you experienced dialogue with him or something similar? If he has spoken to you personally, what did he say?

97

Ah, yes, I do recognize that Polycarp

98

In that earlier post I took some umbrage with your comment about “watering down the Gospel” because it is not the first time I’ve heard the phrase used by conservative Christians about my beliefs. On rereading what you said, I realized you were not so much accusing me of doing so as saying that you hoped that whatever people taught they would not do so.

Since I am as emphatic in my convictions that I am doing my best to follow the Gospel teachings and proclaiming what Jesus wants said as you are, I do find it distasteful, to say the least, for someone to accuse me and those who think like me (such as Guinastasia) of “trying to make up a new gospel out of only those parts that appeal to them.” That’s not the case – I think it’s much harder to make a sincere effort to carry out the Baptismal Covenant that I’m pledged to than it would be to have a shopping list of particular sins that you have to avoid, and having done so can rest assured that you’re “in a state of grace.”

Quite simply, there are as many conceptions of who God really is as there are people thinking about the question. Some see Him as a petty tyrant who hates humanity and will cast all but a few who play yes-man to him into the Pit (and no, not the forum here!), and so reject Him; some see Him as the righteous Judge who cannot abide sin but who loves His people enough to have sent His Son to pay the debt for their sins (this is, I think, where you fall); some see Him as some sort of amorphous Ultimate Ground of All Being (Paul Tillich and John Shelby Spong are here) without the attributes of personhood.

I looked at the one person who is most likely to have the best answer to the question of who God is. Jesus of Nazareth is His Incarnate Son, God in human form. If anybody knows, He does. And what He did was to discard as irrelevant the high-and-lifted-up distant imagery of much of the Old Testament. He addressed God as “Abba” – the word we translate as “the Father.” But it means more than that; it is the familiar word that kids would use when snuggled up to their human fathers – it’s “Daddy.” The Lord’s Prayer, if we were bold enough to translate it literally, would begin, “Daddy, up in Heaven, may we keep your name holy…”

And Jesus’s message is that this nearby, intimate God loves the world enough to have sent Him to suffer in our behalf and to rise again in order to bring us into new life. God Incarnate is not a god who cannot abide sin or sinners – He goes among them, associates with them in preference to the Pharisees, preaches repentance and turning to God’s love, and forgives sin.

Sin in the original Biblical Greek is hamartia – falling short. “For we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Instead of the image of God as Righteous Judge condemning sinners to Hell, Jesus speaks of the Father whose love chastises his erring children to bring them back into right behavior and a full and happy life.

99

:: Poking head in the door, hoping it’s not too rude to comment so far into a debate in progress ::

Nicene Creed

This works for me as a summary of the faith, and I believe it’s worth repeating in church weekly as a reminder.

Note that small-c “catholic” refers to the whole body of Christians and not the Roman Catholic Church. This is true even in the old editions that have it capitalized. “Apostolic” refers to the succession of bishops; I think this is the only point where most Protestants will diverge. Judge for yourself.

I know that some churches believe using creeds is wrong - perhaps considering them “vain repetitions.”

H4E, I haven’t read your very last post yet, but I’m really liking your posts in this thread. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning that. Personally I am unsure about Hell and who likely goes there; I am not in any way a Biblical inerrantist so I’m unsure about a lot of things. (By the way, as a hijack, I’d like to hear justifications for inerrancy - I’ll have to do a search for old threads. If I can’t find a good one, I may start a new one.)

I can’t seem to locate my copy of Mere Christianity but I came in here to quote a little C.S. Lewis. It was in the opening chapters, regarding the fallen nature of humankind. He said something like “Christianity has nothing to say, as far as I know, to people who don’t believe they have sinned and need forgiveness.”

This is in fact how I came to Christianity the second time around - a persistant feeling of sinfulness, unworthiness to be in the presence of God, ever - unless I could somehow be forgiven and made perfect. Luckily, there is a way. :slight_smile:

I don’t know that Christianity does speak all that much to people who are content, secure, fully self-confident and self-reliant. It is truly a religion for people who need help, and I mean that in the best possible way (since I am a Christian!) It is a religion for the poor, the poor in spirit, the downtrodden, the hopeless. No wonder it’s not all that popular in 21st-c. America.

(whoa, like a zillion new posts on preview! Gotta catch up…)

100

This is what I referred to above. I promised this on joining the Episcopal Church, again at my confirmation, and along with my fellow parishioners renew my vow to do so about five times a year at appropriate services. You’ll recognize the first part as the Apostles’ Creed in question-and-answer form.