…or comment, ask clarifying questions, or do much more than witness. I fell for the OP’s “honest question” request. Live and learn.
This sounds interesting, can you elaborate on how and what you caught Satan doing?
I will talk to you about anything. I will tell you what I understand concerning the OP.
I will not debate.
If you, or anyone else, becomes belligerent, I will go no further.
Blessings
Have you noticed the name of this forum?
Well I’m not lying so I guess in your opinion I would need medical help . Some of your ideas and opinions might lead people to believe you need psychiatric help.
Me trying to convince you of Satans existence would be like trying to explain what a color looks like to someone who is blind . Kind of like your blindness of Gods existence. Just as you will argue one way I will argue the other . You will never be able to anger me even with your lame attempts like the godzilla thing and calling me stupid . I only have love for you ,no pity. And thanks for bringing your hate . I know I will never get rid of it but I will continue to try . You’re worth it as one of Gods children.
Oh, one more thing. I don’t believe I will ever see Satan but I have already felt his presence.
Goodness is a measure of something’s moral proximity to God.
It’s also the place for witnessing, which is not debate.
The Great Debates forum exists for two purposes…
It seems clear which you are doing. (Or are we debating this?) There’s nothing wrong with witnessing. I just wish you were less deceptive with your intentions.
Amen
Well it’s not some of my best work and I got TRASHED pretty badly but you asked and as your a guest and can’t search, here you go .http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422838&highlight=satan
You talk to people like that all the time, the only difference is you don’t say, “I love you.”, at the end.
I didn’t specify a time-frame for death. It goes like this. Your life is eternal, you can live forever, here is how. The rub of it is that it is eternal life but not necessarily eternal body life, but more like eternal identity life, but your true identity not the ego mask that you inhabit in this lifetime. It’s like your root into the cosmos, you have cycles of dormancy before you pop up again. So after you die you go into a gestation phase, which can be either heavenly or hellish depending on what you sow’d during life. Now, some people believe in reincarnation, Christians don’t really have a concept for coming back to Earth in that scenario. However, giving up on God is a choice for death, as God is the source of all life. The great Empirical mind that created everything in its own image. So you don’t necessarily make the choice for death at that moment, you still have inertia propelling you through the motions, but now you are merely a physical mechanism without a rider (soul). Once your battery runs out it can’t be recharged because you are no longer connected to the source. The only force in the universe that is able to sever that connection is individual will, thus free will.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Gen. 1:1
While thinking about writing this, a truth about myself cropped up. I found that I often think and write from a negative/critical point of view. In my search to correct this difficulty, I learned that if we determine something is wrong, love will change our discernment into compassion, rather than criticism. Knowing that, I must continually ask God to remind me about love. This led me to think about my life prior to meeting Jesus. Sad to say, negativism has long been a problem in my life.
My desire is to go through as many of the following paragraphs as I can without railing accusation. Because of this, I’ll give you a candid view of me before knowing God-and how I came to know him. I believe my conversion to Christianity is integral to your understanding of any viewpoint I might possess; so, by giving you the capsule version, I’ll be getting everything out in the open-I can be up front. Maybe then, as I refer back to this post for reference, seeing who I really am will assist me in keeping the thoughts of my heart in the right place. With that said, I hope you will forgive my brashness in the next few paragraphs.
The terrible Day of the Lord
I believe that through his son Jesus, the light of the world, our compassionate God is graciously extending his gift of eternal salvation to all-without cost.
He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living. Job 33:27-30
In my studies and prayers, I have grown to know that every word in the Bible is the saving grace of God. In fact, to those who believe, the words are God incarnate-life itself. I love knowing that all of the precepts, written down by the Judeo-Christian sages of old, are required for all to be saved. Each of us living, and all who lived, have in various ways fallen short of the Glory of God, but, in the Bible, no matter who we are and where we come from, our individual spiritual needs are met. The Bible covers every circumstance of life. It brings forth our fallen nature, and encourages us to collectively return to the righteousness of our inception. For those who have a personal relationship with God, the Bible incorporates the pathway to the true vision for man.
Close to two thousand years ago, the Revelation of Jesus Christ came to John the apostle in a vision from God. He was told to write what he saw in a book. I read the book. It’s about a place of beauty and wonder, a place full of the joy of eternal life. I believed the book to be true, and I asked God if I could go there. God is kind to answer prayer. Those who believe are raised at his own right hand with his son Jesus. It was revealed to John that God and the Lamb are a temple of light. I have been given to look upon the glorious light and am now a new creature in Christ; my hopes, thoughts and dreams are that everyone will choose the path leading to the temple of God.
For me, the coming of the day of the Lord was a terrible thing. I remember my first desire to read the Bible. It was to gather proof against the hypocritical Christians in the world. I had never read Scripture and I wasn’t positive who God is, but I was sure that what those “Christians” were saying could not be in their Holy Book. Because of the way they acted toward me, I believed the church to be a ruse; they and their Bible were one of the primary reasons I had given up hope in our society. They were playing a big role in the ruining of my life and I wanted them to stop. No person, group, or book, knew the answer to life and death; and I was going to prove it. Then I would find a way to leave the planet. I just couldn’t live any longer the way I felt.
Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Eccl. 2:17
Along with feelings of rejection toward the Christians, I had come to realize the physics community, of whom I longed to be a part, was hell bent to destroy the freedoms we as a social order innately sought. We allowed that branch of science, and their ilk, to hold back knowledge of the physical heavens from the rest of the world. Furthermore, we encouraged the physicists to surreptitiously feed our armies with the means to eradicate mankind. I began to see that the underlying impetus behind the conglomerate effort to know the workings of our solar surroundings was power-the kind that would allow man to rule man. Something was wrong.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the faceof the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Gen. 1:2
Even so, I believed the model held by the physics community to be the greatest of all paradigms; set in place properly, it would not only be a perfect ruling dynamic, but it had the wherewithal to save the world. I just couldn’t figure out why those we entrusted as caretakers of the paradigm did not want God in the equation. Though I personally didn’t think much about a supreme being, the purity of physics required all things be considered. I felt that if anything was left out of our calculations, we could not realize a true paradigmatic statement. That’s when I saw it; the laws of physics were set in a linear historical frame and they broke down by not being able to predict anything prior to what the physicists call a singularity. Theorems of cosmology required that in time past the universe was compressed to a state of zero. This infinite density, called a singularity, reduced man’s highest form of thought to a place of nothingness-where the light is turned off. Without God, we hit a brick wall; linearity needed to be replaced by an omni, that is, eternal frame. Be that as it may, while purporting gravity, the cosmologists saw all the heaven’s energy migrating toward a mass point and condensed into a state of vacuity. And with that, they realized the greatest weapon of them all-the Big Bang. My conclusions were: we were extracting from the heavens the exact method to manufacture great bombs, and by so doing, we had turned away from any relationship we might have had with God. We wanted to rule. The proof: our country was focused on the inevitable attack by those we feared might retaliate against our overt efforts to control their behavior. We didn’t trust God, we built fallout shelters to protect ourselves from our own unrighteous behavior. Just rewards, I thought.
We, the multitudes, kept our heads in the sand because we were supplied with gifts of placation-TV’s, VCR’s, electric mixers, motorized this and that, electric toothbrushes, and the like. Moreover, learning to operate these mechanical niceties kept mass man opiated-we were like babies in a playpen. We were taught to hold these contrivances close to our bosom, and we obliged by curling around them in a fetal position. Some of us protected our homes and workplaces with steel bars for fear of losing our wonderful contraptions. Our country generated enough money in the sales of these gifts in kind to pay for all the research and development we needed for our war machine.
As any bully would, we rationalized armed conflict to be a successful sociological process. After all, look at our efforts in the second world war; pulling together to stamp out tyranny was good! Further, because of the mechanical and electronic skills required for success, we reasoned we could live for a long time in the luxury of the spoils. Instead, we lived in fear of our enemy, and without God.
The indicators, the messages sent to us by our leadership, were that we would continually be drawn together if we kept the war effort going. Each war would be a goal-as though we were playing a game. We started manufacturing bombs and other weapons and put them up for sale to the world at large, always keeping the most sophisticated for ourselves. We devised electronic war games to alter the mind-set of our children in case we needed more than a generation to gain control of the earth. We inundated our little cowboys and cowgirls with electric mini-jeeps and machine guns that sounded real. In the name of God, our offspring would march in the pathways of our deception. We supplied weapons to any war we could find or covertly create. And, as though it were the ultimate game of chess, we used the powerful image of the “good life” in our country to draw the rest of the world’s eyes off what we were doing and what we could see (mathematically) in the heavens.
We utilized our knowledge of the heavenly mechanics to remain one step ahead in the weapons race. We were told it was a race created for the benefit of the people. Like every corporate conglomerate, though, we often realized an urgent need for expansion; with a change of venue here, and another tac there, we finally settled on Star Wars. Listen to the name and purpose of these words-Star Wars. Had we a motto for our growing madness, I think it would have said: bomb everyone who wants to bomb anybody-nuke the nukers. It was clear-cut that as a self appointed nation we alone would decide what’s good and evil on this earth. For a better vantage point, for us to rule with an iron hand, we took our venerable war machine into the heavens-the very place that has the ability to provide peace on earth.
I must have been in a deep sleep. I was so involved in what I thought to be the purity of the academic study of physics and the history thereof, that I didn’t understand our haste to be of a dubious nature. I got caught up in the arms race like most everyone else. When I opened my eyes and saw what I saw, I had to shake my head to clear it, and I said to myself, “Do nothing, you can’t beat it.” I was fearful. We had a bomb facing every direction, not only toward the enemy but back toward ourselves-dictating our actions. We were living in a false peace-aptly called a cold war. It was then I deemed the physics and war communities like unto a man who would enter a large populated room with a hand grenade. He would pull the pin and yell out “All right you so-and-sos, get down on your faces and shut-up.” There would be compliance, then peace, but not heartfelt peace.
I couldn’t find any compassion for academia. I blamed them. I hated them for what they were doing to me and our country. Whoa,-my legs wobbled from my thoughts. I fell to my knees. I considered myself to be like them and I couldn’t do anything about it. In my heart I cried out to know Love. I could go nowhere. The heaviness of my understanding rendered me still.
My most valuable possession, the profound thoughts of the physical community that I believed could never be superseded, plummeted me into a place of melancholic void, a space with no life. Everything known about the heavens was being used to do injustice to man-and I bought into it. I felt that the totality of my being personified death. I was sore-afraid. This penetrating moment of understanding is what I call my great spiritual black out.
Seeing me in this most untenable state, my wife-to-be sought help. She joined a church. We were told to discontinue our living arrangement until we were married. This was the last straw. There couldn’t be more. Devastated and alone-separated from life itself-I was unable to fully comprehend. What is going on, I thought? The very community that professed love was doing their best to break us up. I wanted justice. Revenge crept up inside of me. Those … Christians were saying we were living in sin; what about them I thought. They were greedily protecting their way of life while the greater portion of the people on the earth were starving. Hypocrites!
Obviously, I couldn’t go to the spiritual community. I had no personal relationship with God or them. My inability to see the light in the physical community kept me from any hint of refuge on this earth. I had no place to share my feelings. My depression became so great that I was afraid to die for fear of what forever might be.
O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Isa. 38:16
I screwed up my courage, and proceeded to throw away all of my dreams. I quit work. I left home. I purchased a used copy of the King James Version of the Bible (because it was the oldest) and stormed off to be close to the sea. I armed myself with the destruction of Christianity-their own Words.
In my first attempt, I couldn’t understand a syllable of the King James English. I had read a great deal of Shakespeare, but, there was no sense to be made of this writing. Could it be there was some sort of hidden code? (In retrospect, I was tenaciously clinging to my only understanding-even though I perceived it to have no foundation.) By the grace of God, I remembered I was told to “kneel and pray” before reading the book. I thought it was silly to get on my knees, (what could I do there that I couldn’t do standing or sitting) but I did. “I don’t know who you are God, and I don’t know what to say, but if you’re there please help me to understand.” An awareness of something began to tug at my soul. It kept coming to my mind that I would hear the truth if I tried reading the Bible again.
Many times in the past, questions emerged from within me concerning how man came into being or what made the earth and the stars. In the academic disciplines I had read, the only answer that I could find was: it could have been this, or, according to an ancient writer if this were so, then maybe that happened. In the Bible, the first words said to me were God did it! I clearly understood what was said. I made a choice. Without question I believed for the first time. God took me to the beginning and started me in a direction I innately wanted to go-toward heaven. At that moment, one on one, God created for me the Heaven and the Earth.
My first reading of the Bible was very deliberate. It took six weeks. I stopped only for sleep and prayers of forgiveness for the things I had done. Most of my reading was outside, in a little clump of trees, close to the water, where I could be by myself. Nothing could have kept me from the truth that was unfolding. I had been unctioned to leave the darkness behind. From Genesis to the Revelation, the words of God riveted my soul with the wonder of creation and the knowledge of my wretchedness.
When I met Jesus, I could see myself as one who would throw dice for his garments, and stick a spear in his side to test if he were dead.
I finished the Revelation and immediately returned to the old testament. I sought to understand more of Christ and the Church through the relationship of Ruth to Boaz. When the awareness came, my whole being seemed to focus on our Saviour Jesus and his reasons for allowing the terribleness of the cross to happen. It was then I believed Jesus to be the Messiah. I came undone. I knew that every part of me was known. I felt naked. In my thoughts I was a drunk, a whoremonger, a murderer, a perverted soul with no right to life-Satan himself-and all the host of heaven was watching. The terror was more than I could bear. I cried for God to eradicate me from the earth, to send me to hell for the benefit of those I might endanger.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Gen. 1:3
Instead of God taking me off the earth, I woke up on the ground prostrate and crying uncontrollably. For a moment I thought a whirlwind had entered me and moved every particle of my physicality around and into a different place. There was mud and grass covering my face and imbedded deep into my fingernails. I was surrounded by Jesus, the light. The book was true. It said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).
Shortly, I felt the softness of a hand on my shoulder. It was an old lady. She said her name was Ruth. She had come to tell me Jesus is my Saviour-I had been forgiven. She told me she had been watching me for several weeks. She sat on the ground with me and for the better part of the day comforted me with her hugs and exceptional knowledge of Scripture. She assured me that the light I was experiencing was Jesus, and showed me the biblical proof. I asked her about mercy, faith, grace, flesh and sin. I told her my darkest secrets. I asked her why Jesus wasn’t talking to me like he did with Paul. She said, he probably revealed all he had to say to me in the Scripture, but he promised he would visit those who believed. I asked if I could see her again; almost dismissing the thought, she said Jesus would show me the way.
In those few precious moments with Ruth, and for the first time in my life on this earth, I experienced truth, love, friendship, joy, righteousness, and forgiveness. How I long to give those things away as she gave them to me.
The visible light was with me for months. I told everyone about it. Thinking me crazy, my friends began to dissipate. Some of the people in the churches I attended suggested psychological help. I thought all Christians had seen the light. Isn’t it Jesus that sets us apart? Jesus is the light of the world, the firstfruits of the spirit. We are the light of the world, the firstfruits thereafter. When I insisted, I was called Satan. I was told I was transforming myself into an angel of light. The confusion overwhelmed me. I wanted things cleared up so I could at least talk to people who professed they had been saved. As my zealousness began to fade, a gift was strongly implanted in my mind to thoroughly study every word in the Bible, to “prove all things.” I wasn’t going to stop talking about Jesus, so I had no choice. It was difficult for me to comprehend that maturity comes with wisdom and I had little. Down deep inside though, to the marrow of my bones, I was convinced there is nothing more important than God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. I couldn’t be Satan-I had been forgiven!
One day I noticed the light surrounding me had begun to recede toward the heavens. In tears, I frantically searched the Scripture to find out why. With great relief, I found passages saying Jesus would return, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you” (John 16:7). “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebr. 13:5). I trusted him.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Gen.1:4
And the evidence will always be on my side.
Then goodness is being evil ? I should go out and kill everyone who disagrees with me, because that’s closer to God’s behavior ? I should kill firstborn children, spread plagues, drown people and kill those who refuse to worship me ?
The last thing I would call “moral proximity to God” is good.
I believe the Bible is the Word of God. And in fact, I understand the words in the Bible to be God. I believe the Bible has been placed on this earth through the loving inspired hearts and minds of the prophets and the apostles. I am convinced that it is perfect, whole, and complete. The reason: I have been saved. No other book, and I have read many, can give us the knowledge and the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we believe, the words of Jesus enter into our very soul and change our lives. In turn, the life that is in us, is born from us as manifest light to the world. We are born again; the world is unctioned to the light of eternal life.
I read the Bible from start to finish. I believe that is was put in our hands to be read in that manner. I hear it said that we should start in the middle, or, with the Gospel of John, or some such thing; but, I am convinced that it should be read from the beginning. When I speak to those who have not read the Bible as I think it is intended to be read, I hear another story than from those who read the work straight through. Those who have read from Genesis on, seem to know the path toward heaven. Those who have read piece meal, weather they have read it all or not, seem to know there is a heaven, but are not clear according to the Bible, how to get there. When we start from the middle we are constantly looking back toward the beginning. By starting in the beginning, we are looking (from every direction) toward the coming Messiah; when we meet Jesus, we believe his words, and he directs our eyes and our hearts toward the eternal heavens.
If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:31:47)
If I speak the truth, and you can rejoice for a while in the light of what I say, that’s OK. But, Jesus doesn’t want the testimony of men. To receive the light of Life, believe and understand the Old Testament writings, they speak of Jesus. You do that by reading them. Moreover, if you are aware of those who do not have the ability to read, you yourself, or, find someone that will read this incredible description of Jesus to them. If you refuse, they will not have HIS word abiding in them. Remember, we cannot believe the writings of Moses if we do not read them. Without the prophets we are not able to completely understand or believe the words of Jesus.
In this post it will be our endeavor to find the significance of the English term, Word. We will start at the beginning of the Bible- Literally. At the beginning is the word in. The meaning of the word seems elusive. When I question as to what in means, invariably I am asked, “In what?”. “No”, I will say, “What does the word in mean without regard to anything else?”. “Well, I don’t know, it could mean inside or within.” “Yes”, I will say, “Now, what does In the beginning mean?” “Well, I suppose it means In the beginning. You know, way back in time-at the beginning.” This is typical of the many conversations I have had concerning the term in.
The secular use of the word is that of a preposition; combined with a noun in makes up a phrase; such as, in the garden (a physical place), in support (situational), in the spirit (manner). When we scrutinize the word, it always means within, inside, or in the midst of something. In a hurry, means that I am inside, within, in the midst of a hurry.
The theological use of the word in must include the Greek term en. En
Albert Einstein, had a deep conviction that a higher power of thought was manifest by the inscrutable universe. Purportedly, his God was the God of Spinoza. In 1699 J.G. Wachter’s Der Spinozimus im Judenthumb, endeavored to show that the seed of the pantheistic system of Spinoza came from the Kabbalah. However, the theological formulas of pantheism, “God is everything” and “Everything is God” were also found in Muslim and Christian mysticism. At that time, and even today, pantheistic thought processes are embedded in the mathematical theories that pervade our sociological, psychological, and economical worldly view. The pantheistic doctrine that God “is everything” etc., taken to it’s logical end reduces God to that which is manifest, and is directly opposed to the teachings of the apostles John and Paul, who respectively say, God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. ( Joh 4:24); And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (1Co 15:28) According to the prophets and apostles of the Bible, God the creator of the cosmological system in all ways waxes greater than his creation, as would be the nature of the potter’s ascendancy over the pot. Even the Son is subject to the Father: Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. (Joh 14:10) Everything is in God, and God is in everything.
In is the word of distinction. In is the first word in the Bible. It begins the biblical discourse requiring a choice. The selection we make concerning the meaning of the first word determines the outcome of our very existence-we act in faith. I believe that etymology, philology, and by course historical context, are the keys to understanding text from antiquity. Even so, what is essential and ultimately true, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of things, is: the Spirit, the words themselves, will make the increase.
Generally it is thought that the word in in the phrase “In the beginning” in Genesis 1:1, refers to a first moment in time. Because of the said historical sense in the first few verses of the creation story, the connotation of in is an act or process, beginning and on this side of time-this formulation requires in to mean, at the beginning. At the beginning, an historical term, is opposed to the word in in the phrase “In the beginning” in John 1:1, which is reported to mean, prior to the beginning-existence before time. Here we have a word that means one thing in one place, and another meaning in another place, same phrase-In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and, In the beginning was the word … .
The apostle John in the beginning of his first letter, wrote: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us…). In these verses we see the phrase, from (apo=meaning out of) the beginning; the life was manifested to John and his fellows in Christ. Manifest inherently means that which is already there; as well, readily perceived, not concealed, open to the senses. The Word of life is the light of men. The Word is the logos (logos) of life, the very God of Creation.
Beginning
In the New Testament, the word arch is most always rendered beginning; such as, 1 John 1:1. However, considering the historical context it is said to mean a first point in time. Beginning (arche) means from or out (apo) of the beginning and assumes the inclusion of the Greek term logos which is from before time; and which, refers to the Christ. Again, in 1Jo 2:24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
I believe this is a pivotal point, it is here that we will be able to either accept or reject all I am going to say or have said. The following concerns the bottom line of this thesis. It is not provable in history, philology, etymology, or anywhere outside of the biblical words presented. I believe it can only be proven by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, the words that I give you are spirit and they are life. I am sure that the words given will prove a foundation for all to believe-for the words that manifest are God.
The word beginning is a most miraculous word. Beginning is the embodiment of Christ the Word of Life, who is God, as are other words in the Bible; such as, ending, light, life, word, spirit, etc. Jesus said he is the beginning and the ending. It is true that each of the above words can be used in a worldly sense, e.g., the spirit of a team, the light from a bulb, the ending of a pier, the life of a ball bearing; but, in the word of God, these words with biblical meanings are the all powerful eternal existence of man, the saving grace of God. When Jesus says he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the ending, he is aware of the content of any previous words given. Remember, it is through Jesus, the light of the world (kosmos) that everything was made. Jesus is the beginning and everything came from the beginning and resides within the beginning. The word in, in the phrase, In the beginning in Genesis 1:1, therefore, is required to mean within, inside in the midst of that which is the beginning.
:dubious:
lightwait, much more sincere. Thank you.
Well if that’s all that matters. How about this . Can you touch Love ?Can you hold it in your hand ? I can’t . But I see what it does for other people . I can see what I do for other because of it .Thats how I know it is real. I hope that you have some one who loves you and who you love . If you do maybe you can get even the faintest idea of why I believe what I believe and do what I do. It is for Love.
Right, because you’d have loved not being a citizen in the Roman Empire. One day you will wake up and realize that Christianity as a system of social order is a major reason why you even know how to read or write. Before the printing press the only book anyone really had to read was the bible, most people couldn’t even AFFORD a bible because they were all HAND TRANSCRIBED. So you either got one because you were rich or because you met some monk or priest who thought it was ‘doing god’s work’ to teach you how to read and to provide you with something worth reading (to them). Do you think the nobility of Europe were staging literacy campaigns or something?
You like all those baroque melodies you hear almost ubiquitously throughout the world? Many of those were works done in service to God with patronage from the church. Kings who went to war whimsically would have done it even more often without the priests trying to solve disputes through diplomatic channels from within the church.
Of course none of that matters. It probably doesn’t matter to you that you live in a country, that was built upon the values of freedom and equality, making it socially acceptable for you to hold what would have been at the time revolutionary opinions, that was built by Freemasons and Protestants.
Of course you’ll point out all of their flaws all of their ‘fallen’ human characteristics, like fucking their slaves, or monetary self-interest, whatever.
Wake up, you don’t have to believe in God to accept that even though you received a lot of bad from Christianity you received a lot of Good. Civilization is a nasty process, Christianity has done a lot to instill values of service to your fellow man amongst the populace, while negotiating through the same halls as predatory realpolitik.
Christianity was an attempt at overcoming tribalism, uniting the human race as a single tribe. At creating a ‘universal’ faith. Yes, the process has been long and painful, but for every inquisitor you have also had missionaries willing to get shot trying to help people in war zones, spreading love where it is needed most even if it kills them.
This is not to say that pricks like Ted Haggard don’t make me angry, but Christianity has its positive points too.
I hope that wasn’t for me.