I take it to mean if God shows us what he wants us to know then he sure sends out contradictory meanings as there are so many religions that contradict the other and many sincere people are getting mixed messages.
The spirit of the law was more important to Jesus than the letter,hence he said," Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man."
If the Pharisee’s didn’t understand the Spirit of the law they should still not be blamed for what they didn’t understand. I take it to mean they were more interested in expecting everyone to do as they were.
:rolleyes: And you follow this self absorbed jerk why ?
And naturally, he’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear. That’s the convienient thing about running your life according to a delusion; it always agrees with your prejudices and desires.
That rather obviously violates the free will that Christians go on about. And what makes you think that God wants to turn evil into good ?
It’s easy enough to for the leaders to know. If they really hear messages from “God”, they are hallucinating, and should get medical care. If they aren’t, then they are lying.
Ok, I got you, my explanation is that God’s message sometimes will seem contradictory as we can’t understand His plan. Also there are false ‘gods’ who are deceptive and will also cause apparent contradictions.
It would seem so, this does not mean that this is the reason Jesus ‘despised’ the pharasees as per your claim.
When Jesus said this He was in teaching mode, not pharisee ‘despising’ mode.
(Assuming Mark 2:27), Mark 2 in total reads more like he is correcting (teaching) them, this does not equate to despisement.
A person with a God is much better off then a person without one, it is such a honor. What self absorbed jerk do you follow and why?
No He does not, He tells you exactly what He wants to, which many times is in conflict of what you want to hear. With this statement you have proven you have no idea of who God is or are being intentional deceptive.
You keep claiming free will violation without any logical link. And for the 2nd part. God’s kingdom is in conflict with the kingdom of evil, it would be pretty silly for Him to do otherwise.
If God’s Kingdom is in conflict with the Kingdom of evil,and since God is more powerful, I would think it rather silly of a God to allow such a Kingdom to exist.
As a human parent there is no way I would allow a monster (I created) harm or entice any of my children,so I find it hard to reconcile to the idea that a Supreme Being who knows all things, and has all power, would even consider letting any one harm his child. it would be like letting a child run in front of a moving train,that is not my idea of free will, but bad parenting.
How could anybody know whether the god they are in touch with is false, though? And before you say “the bible” or cite some other ritual or method, I’d ask how does one know that the bible and the rituals weren’t devised by false gods to decieve us into a false sense of security? Or that they weren’t merely made up out of the traditions of man, and are entirely ineffective at screening false gods (if any such things exist)?
Note that the fact that a given god has not yet gone evil or turned on you is not evidence that the god is not merely biding his time, and will go evil on you later. Given that, how could anybody possibly be certain of the nature of the god they have found? (Assuming that the god is not merely a mistaken conflation of misinterpreted feeling read against manmade scripture, that is.)
As for myself, I don’t follow any jerk, or any diety at all for that matter. Of course, as I have no way of knowing the true nature of any god, I would not be able to know that any god was actually good; and there is no honor in following an evil god. (Or an imaginary one.)
And your evidence that a person with a God is “much better off” than one without ? And I don’t follow any god ( and ANY being that accepts or demands worship is a self absorbed jerk, at the very least ).
No, I’m pointing out that since God is nothing but fiction, if you claim to hear him you are either a liar or crazy.
If God is manipulating people to “turn evil into good”, that’s obviously going against their free will. That, after all, is exactly the standard Christian claim as to why their supposedly all powerful benevolent god doesn’t do anything about the evil in the world.
As for God being in conflict with the kingdom of evil, I seem no reason to consider God to be anything but evil, assuming he was real in the first place.
God apparently agrees with you and will defeat this kingdom.
I hear what you are saying, it is trust in God’s plan that allows me to accept it (as long as the revelation not to trust in man’'s plan).
All I can say is that God has convinced me, actually He convinced me that any alternative would lead to destruction.
So the ‘jerk’ you follow is yourself then? If so I’ll stick with God thankyouverymuch.
For some reason I suspect that you will have this answer, hopefully before you die.
So like begbert2 the ‘jerk’ you follow is yourself, and again no thanks I am much happier with God.
Again not only do you have no proof of your statement, but one day you will kneel down and you will confess that Jesus is lord, I pray that you find Him sooner then later.
Couldn’t I be deceived as well?
Was the killing of Jesus evil? That would be the ulitmate good from evil.
I’ve known very clever people to make mistakes and be fooled. I will compliment you by thinking of you as their equal: you too could have granted trust too easily. Your endorsement is therefore not a convincing argument for me to change my position that there is not sufficient information available to justify trust in any god.
I specifically stated I didn’t follow a jerk; are you calling me a liar? If you’re going to insist that I must be following myself (which is silly anyway), then you must be stating that I am not a jerk.
And as you know less about me than I know about your god, I would have to say that choosing not to worship me must again by definition be a hasty decision. How do you know you wouldn’t be happier as my follower? It’s not like you’ve tried it, now have you?
kanicbird, if you could you take a look at my hurricane-related question in post #47…If those who prayed but ended up with destroyed houses after all asked why it happened, would they possibly be satisfied with the “it’s all part of a plan we can’t comprehend” answer? I don’t think I could.
kanic: One more thing…I may sound as if I’m jabbing at you and perhaps I have, but I’ve been in the wandering-truth-seeker phase for a while and I have a lot of things that I am trying to figure out.
I have seen the deaths of several friends’ parents and my own dad and uncle in recent years, and have seen no evidence that prayer helped them. Maybe it didn’t harm them either, but then…why pray? I just can’t see how we can influence the outcome.
To add some details: Every situation, every family, is different. Some ill, aged folks improve, some level off, some wither and die. Some qo quietly and others do not. Depending on the medical intervention, living wills, advance directives, and so on, anything can happen. To be honest, I did not pray for my dad’s late stage Alzheimer’s or my friend’s dad’s Parkinson’s to “get better,” because those particular diseases do not get better. They are progressive. I seriously think it’s better for the sufferer to go sooner rather than go later, in the advanced and very horrible stages of these ailments.
FTR, I don’t have a problem with Jesus. I do think that if more people actually followed his recommendations and simple truths about loving, forgiving, and taking care of others, the world would see a great improvement. Unfortunately, organizations, hierarchies, and various agendas have hijacked and twisted things so badly that people are, quite understandably, soured on the church in general.
You state that God will defeat the evil kingdom, but in the mean time millions of His children have been condemmed to eternal death,I wonder why he allowed it in the first place,and since He knew millions over the years would be lost it seems unreasonable to think he would wait thousands of years to destroy an evil being that he created. Since God was to have created Satan and he must have known that Satan would destroy many of his children; then God would have to be responsible for the children’s destruction. He could have destroyed evil when it first happened. One doesn’t give a child the right to choose an action that will kill him or someone else. A good parent steps in.
Since Jesus could have stopped his own death but didn’t then It could be considered suicide.
If Jesus chose to live instead then more people would believe a 2000 plus year old man than one who died, I believe it can take more courage to live than to die.
no problem, it’s a common thing here and I am quite used to it
There is no doubt that there is suffering and death in this world, God even made His own Son suffer horribly. Jesus’ own prayers to His Father would not change it. It is a very unfortunate result of the fall of man. It’s something we all must go through to various degrees. Do I believe prayer can help avoid some of the pain? - Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Why God the Father made suffering part of His plan I do not know, I can speculate and say it may be a part of a refining process where we are purified to be with God, but this doesn’t apply to Jesus.
I agree with you totally with the above statements. Much of the Church(es) have lost their way IMHO, it is very unfortunate. My suggestion is to use the NT as a guide to the teachings of Jesus and if one does find a church see if they agree with Jesus’ teachings, or do they seem to be twisting His words and the teachings in the letters or leaving out certain parts, or even certain books entirely. The Bible is very available in many translations, there is no reason any longer to depend on others to know Jesus, we are empowered to find Him directly and then we can find the true followers of Jesus to help us further.
To go into your post #47, God is not our genie. God is much greater then ourselves. He gives to us according to His wants, not ours.
I’m not trying to convince you, that’s God’s job, I’m just saying what my walk in Jesus is like. , if you are called you will have the proof you need from God Himself.
You called my God a jerk, I returned the favor, which I now admit I shouldn’t have.
Sorry I already have a God and I am very happy with Him.
Well, my position is that it’s actually impossible for God to provide proof that he is not evil, due to the fact that no matter what information he provides, there remains the simple fact that he’s providing it - and, therefore, controlling what information we receive. We can’t get the BBB or an oversight committee to go in and independently verify that any given god is on the up-and-up; we have nothing to go on but what he tells us, which, given that any vision or whatnot that we might receive might have been custom-crafted to distort the truth, means that there is no way at all to ensure we’re not being fed a line.
Now, does this mean that God couldn’t come down and blow away my doubts? No. If God is real and as advertised, presumably he could alter my mind as necessary to make me believe any damn thing he wants. But even if he did, that wouldn’t mean he was representing himself and his motives truthfully; it would just mean that he had eliminated my personal ability to judge the situation rationally. If I was left with that ability, I cannot imagine how I could trust a being capable of forcing thoughts and visions into my mind; such a being clearly could show me any image true or false that it wants.
Heh, if you read carefully it wasn’t me who called your god a jerk - at least not recently. Still though, to keep you honest, the god of the old testament is a jerk, what with killing being a first-choice response for dealing with people who aren’t worshipping him (and what with killing people being a rather impolite activity by pretty much any standard). So now we’re even.
Oh, I’m not saying I’d be better. (I don’t even offer a dental plan.) I’m just saying that, objectively speaking, you have made your choice without first acquiring enough information to be certain of the nature of the persons or deities in question. Which is precisely what I don’t want to do when dealing with entities that are rumored to have awesome destructive power and a willingness to wield it against human souls (if such things as these souls or beings exist at all).
OK except that God gets to defines true good and evil.
Lets move this to what a true God would do, not some mindmelding Vulcan. God has the ability for you to know all truths and decide for yourself, but if He did I strongly suspect that you would chose Him.
Death is not the end, just a separation of the body and spirit. God did not make them non-existent, though He may have them condemned to Hell. But before there I personally see the time of the OT much different then that of the NT. IMHO we can not judge OT standards from NT (or modern) standards - though God’s word is constant. I beleive the world is fundamentally different, and as I like to state it Jesus split time.
What is wielded against human souls is not of God but man fending for himself as a god, along with much more powerful beings who also strive to be a god and/or hate the true God and hate us as we are made in Him image.
Nonsense. Either good and evil are objective, it which case God doesn’t get to define it any more than we do, or it’s not objective in which case we can define it as well. And being powerful doesn’t make you the arbiter of morality. Care to give a reason why the sociopathic megalomaniac you make God out to be is moral ?
Complete, incoherent silliness. You are looking at the nasty, pieced together mess that is the Bible, and trying to make it consistant and moral, but it doesn’t work. The God of the OT acts and talks somewhat different because those parts were written by different people, not because God is acting completly different and being constant at the same time.
Well, if good and evil are defined by anybody at all, then they’re not inherent or absolute; therefore it’s my word against his. Which is all well and good for persons such as yourself who have accepted his authority, but as I haven’t, his opinions only have meaning to me as a way to assess his value.
The most probable way that your god would get to “define” good and evil over me would be if he made me his captive and enforced his opinions and judgement on me against my will. This would certainly let him get to say his definition of good is absolute, since the victors write the history books, but in actuality good and evil would remain subjectively defined, as they always had been.
I don’t see the difference between this and what I said. If god implants those “truths” into my mind as mere information, allowing me to judge their credibility on my own, then there is little chance that I will trust the unsubstantiated assertions of some mysterious masked diety, no matter how those ideas are told to me. If he implants them as truths, and thus lobotomizes me of my ability to assess their credibility and forces me to accept his every word as true, then of course I’ll fall to him, without a doubt. Choosing wouldn’t even enter into it; he’d have told me he was my master and forced me to believe.
But God’s word (and thus presumably his opinions) are constant, and a person (or god) who thought and things that it’s a nice first option to preemptively cut somebody’s parole short and throw them into torture and jail early, is a jerk. IMHO.
(This goes times x 100000000 if the only reason they’re going to jail/hell at all is because he subjectively defined good and evil to trump up a justification to send them there.)
Oh, so there isn’t going to be a final judgement or a Hell then? Since that’s what I was referring to. And those are explicitly God’s handiwork, I believe.
Sorry too late, God has already defined it as well as ‘objective’.
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I do see a consistency between the OT and NT, God has been consistent even if man and time has not.
And just to mention that I think you will come to Jesus and accept Him, I have to admit it’s not enough that I would consider it prophecy, but I beleive it to be true.
Man’s word against God’s, fat chance is putting it lightly.
This is apparently your God given right, use it wisely.
If it were just that easy, unfortunately it’s not and we have to decide if we want Him as our God.
The difference is that in your case God would force you to accept Him, in my example God just lets you know the facts and lets you decide - yea your right there is absolutely no difference (where is the rolleyes smily)
Correct
It’s not parole but undeserved favor, which can righteously be withdrawn at any time and it is still a net benefit to the recipient for the time he has it.
Yes there is a final judgment, and we are blessed to have God as the judge.
Contradiction of terms. It cannot be both arbitrarily defined and objective.
Yes, I know, he’s likely to react violently and steamroll right over me if the Bible is even vaguely correct. ‘Might makes right’, eh?
Fine. I decide he’s not my God and that he has no authority over me. I’ll just hang out in heaven, then, and if God doesn’t like me being around him he can just leave. (There should be a vacancy in Hell, since I’ll have refused his claim that I have a place there.)
Yeahright. According to pretty much all variants of the christian religion God will enforce his will on all people, either by their choosing to serve him, or by him tossing their butts in Hell and torturing them into a state of non-opposition. (As if being imprisoned wasn’t enough.) Face facts; even the most benevolent portrayal of God is an authoritarian dictator. Unless you’re saying we can vote him out?
Reread. In both of my descriptions of the scenario I described both the ‘information given’ and ‘information forced’ options.
:rolleyes:
Right, and it’s not even rude to slaughter someone then? A little drowning in worldwide floods is politer than letting them live long and die peacefully in their sleep? Burning them to death as you destroy their cities with fire from heaven is a right friendly thing to do? Afflicting an entire nation with plagues (to the point of slaughtering their firstborn children) for the stubbornness of one single individual is proper ettiquite according to Miss Manners?
As I said before: the God described in the bible is kind of a jerk, IMHO.
The dudes he sends to hell will not be ‘blessed’, by any rational standard.
Still though, to keep you honest, the god of the old testament is a jerk, what with killing being a first-choice response for dealing with people who aren’t worshipping him (and what with killing people being a rather impolite activity by pretty much any standard). So now we’re even.