Der Trihs Please bring you’re hate for discussion . I need to be able to attempt to counter it . It is very powerful but I believe His love can lay it to waste even from a fool like me . I must try .
These are some words that I live by:
“For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really it than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
That pretty much sums up my feelings on this whole debate.
Not everyone believes that Jesus was the Son of God, or that there is a God for him to be the son of. As for his greatest lesson, judging from his followers it was “hate everyone and everything, including yourself, and spread this doctrine of omnihate, no matter the cost”. That may not have been what he intended, but that seems to have been the result.
Frankly, if he was trying to spread a religion of peace and love and so on, he failed miserably.
I withdrew the different moral compasses because I could not relate it to scripture, as there was no time listed w/o God or Satan, it is my belief that if those 2 are taken out we would get a bunch of localized moral directions. The difference between that and people under the moral direction of Satan is Satan would control the compasses, instead of it being random.
It’s hard to go with just the flesh because it doesn’t happen for long periods of time before Satan steps in, w/o God the world does not exist, if God ‘disappears’ the world flies apart, so we are really talking about speculation and perhaps some extrapolation at best.
My best WAG would be technological stagnation, constant oppression, famine, disease - a world of fear, pain and continuous conflict at every moment at every place man goes. Life expectancies would quickly drop, perhaps to below childbearing years, which would be all she wrote.
As destruction of our soul, a fallen state that we ourselves can never repair.
Who is saying it and by want authority? If it’s by another human then I would feel confused (as it is a strange statement to be made by a person), If t was made by God, and lets complete it, and add " and accept you as my child", I would be overjoyed, which I am.
There are many Christians who really haven’t gotten it, mswas is correct once you taste the fruit of the Spirit of God, there is no turning back without full acknowledgment that you are choosing death.
You forgot to add ‘at this time’, as we all know there will a day coming when every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord and every knee will bow.
You do know that “love” and “pity” have different definitions, right? If I adopted a child, I would never let that child know that I even entertained the notion that I believed the she/he was vastly inferior and not worthy, and never would be worthy, of my love. I’ve seen households where children were treated this way, and some of these children eventually became damaged enough to actually believe that this was “love”.
This is just personal opinion, unless either you or mswas can read minds.
Don’t hold your breath.
If you have a different interpretation of scripture that’s fine, and actually I enjoy knowing different interpretations, but if you are just going to ignore large sections because you decide they don’t fit what you think God should be then I think you are putting too much of yourself into those interpretations and leaving too little for God.
From a previous discussion/argument we had about the Holy Spirit, though I haven’t had time yet, as I’m in the prophets of the OT now, I am planning to see if it can be read in a way that supports your view that IIRC is that by actions alone, w/o knowing Jesus you can receive th Holy Spirit and be saved. Again I don’t believe this to be true, but it’s a interesting concept, worth looking into.
In general this strikes me as worldly reply
I’m open to scriptural discussion. I believe God lets us know what we need to know when we need to and as Christians we are not to act as a lone ranger but made to piece the puzzle together.
Yes I know. Gods love is NOT pity, but a true love for us. Unlike the damaged child that you would never personally do, God makes us aiers to His throne - this is not pity.
Is our opinion and it is scriptural.
Why ? Why do you think the world requires a God to stay together ? Not only is there no evidence of that, but it’s rather insulting to him if God actually exists to say he made the world so flimsy. And what makes you think that technological progress of all things would stagnate ? And why would people start to fight each other like lunatics all of a sudden ?
That’s just sick. A great example of Christian self hate.
Pure nonsense. People are pefectly capable of deciding the Christian religion is wrong, and choosing a new one or none at all without “full acknowledgment that you are choosing death.”
I “know” nothing of the sort. Nether do many millions of others; over a billion Muslims come to mind. And Hindus, and Buddhists, and Zorasterians, and Shintoists, and many, many other people who “know” nothing of the sort. And nothing short of mind control will ever make me feel anything but hatred and contempt for Jesus and his vile religion. And I will never acknowledge anyone as “lord”.
All very nice - but it very much sounds like you are saying that as long as one loves their neighbour, their belief in supernatural characters is unimportant.
I am godless, but despite certain aesthetic reservations, consider myself generally a force for good, rather than ‘evil’. If I can be a humanist, a sceptic and a good man, where is the need for god?
Why? Because God has allowed me to think these things.
A belief that inspiration, knowledge and wisdom is provided to man by either God or Satanic forces.
How is being accepted as a child of God self hate? How is acknowledging the fact that we are less then the One who created us, the universe, and all things self hate?
There is a vast difference between a casual Christian relationship and one that one knows God on a personal level and has experienced His supernatural power - in the ladder if someone does turn back it is with full knowledge that there is no turning back, the unpardonable sin. It is choosing Death.
And Jesus still loves you, He stands at the door knocking.
In other words, you just made it up.
More self hate. No, we do it all ourselves.
How is going on and on about how inferior and unworthy and undeserving we are anything BUT self hate ? Practically every other sentance of yours in this thread is about how we are worthless scum who have no independent existence, no positive qualities and who can’t even invent a pogo stick without God putting the idea in our heads.
Except that such a thing has never happened. No one has ever “known God on a personal level” or “experienced His supernatural power”, since neither God nor the supernatural exist. There’s nothing to experience - except self delusion, which people are perfectly capable of walking away from without “choosing Death”
And even if I’m wrong, without objective evidence there’s no way to know that what you have experienced is real or delusion, so you still wouldn’t have “full knowledge” of anything.
So among his other flaws, Jesus is a stalker.
Christian beliefs about the bible being divine scripture are a tradition. One that I once fully embraced. Should we place truth above tradition? The assumption is that it was God’s plan that we have one final inspired authoritative book to guide and instruct us. The thing I noticed is that belief is not found anywhere in the Bible. There is nothing in the scriptures to indicate that the Bible as we have it today was ever intended to become what Christian tradition has turned it into.
There’s the oft quoted 2 Tim 3:16 “all scripture is inspired” etc. but that does nothing to support the concept of our present day Bible as the final revelation of God’s will. That was written long before a group of men decided which books would be considered to be scripture and doesn’t refer to the NT.
So, the idea that it was God’s plan that we have the Bible as the inspired final revelation of his will is a Christian tradition with no foundation other than tradition. “Lot’s of good people believe it so it must be true” is quite human but hardly divine.
FTR I have studied the Bible quite a bit myself and revere it as a valuable book that can help us understand what our relationship with God can be, but we must study and see it for what it is and what it is not if we put truth above tradition.
The books were written by men decades after the life of Jesus, and then copied and copied again and again. The evidence indicates changes were made. Then hundreds of years later when there were several groups around that all claimed to be following the teachings of Jesus and all having writings they revered, a Roman emperor, decreed that religious leaders {men} gather together and decide what official Christian belief should be and which of the writings that were being circulated would be included in the official Bible. From this we got the Nicene Creed and the books that they felt supported their personal concept of what Jesus taught. Established by men with their own agenda hundreds of years after Jesus.
You misunderstood my view. It’s not our actions that save us. Our actions reflect the true inner person and what we value most. We can be transformed by looking within and communing with the Holy Spirit and having the will and faith to go where it leads.
God and Jesus have no egos. It’s what in our hearts that counts not what name we call out. If Jesus works for you that’s fine. If Buddha works for someone else that’s okay to. If love and truth work for the non religious that’s okay as well. We are not perfect and our path will not be perfect but if we have the same goal then our different paths can lead to the same place. We must place love and truth above our own ego and religious tradition.
It’s a reply that comes from lots of study and a desire to know the truth about the Bible. IMHO the only real word of God is the Holy Spirit that lives within us. It cannot be contained in any book no matter how much we revere it. The written word can be a signpost that helps point the way or stimulates our thought process but in the end we must look within and learn to trust the Holy Spirit over tradition and the teachings of other men.
Do you believe God loves all mankind equally?
Do you believe James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
Does it make sense that a loving God would commune with any person who sincerely sought that communion and that others might seek to write down there experiences?
I certainly agree it is a mystery that takes time and effort to understand.
You are absolutely correct. Pity has no place in human relations. Empathy is a much better approach to helping others. But the best is love.
It is possible to know God on a personal level, I am sure billions of people over the years have done so. But that does not make them special in any way. God doesn’t love them any more than He loves those who don’t have a personal experience of Him. Neither are they more worthy than others. The only benefit in having a personal experience with God is feeling His love, and thereby understanding what is important in life. There is no fear after that ever.
Apologies, i’m afraid i’ve meade my point unclear. If you imagine a world without God and Satan, and without any other being controlling our moral direction besides ourselves and other people; How would this world look different from the actual world? It seems to me that in this world people do have many different moral directions, different moral paths that they follow. I don’t think that a world without God or Satan or whoever would appear all that different to this one. Bear in mind that i’m not talking about truth, or deeper reality, since clearly these two worlds would be different on that level. I’m speaking purely in terms of people.
I’d remind you again that i’m talking about a world without both God and Satan. Well, it’s not really as if this doesn’t happen in some parts of the world, unfortunetly. The problem as I see it is this; if that’s just speculation, who is to say that actually what could happen is that humanity gets along perfectly fine until the second before we become extinct some millions of years in the future. We could, potentially, have many, many years to live; a world without God and Satan could possibly last eras. Is that possible, Biblically speaking?
A question. Is it possible that people on Earth are already in this destroyed state? What kind of thing would have to happen to bring this about?
Why should I take your word over theirs? I mean, you do both claim to be Christians. Do you have Biblical or theological support for this idea?
No, we don’t all “know” that. Are you the type of religious person that believes anyone who doesn’t follow their faith secretly does believe in their god but doesn’t go along with them out of spite or some other reason?
I find it difficult to believe you have read them.
This is a frightful amount of violent imagery for a goal of loving your fellow humans.
Can’t he read the “No Solicitors” sign?
Yes, though these signs have no binding legal authority on Him 
Biblically speaking the world can not exist w/o God, and would be a much better place w/o Satan. So you are really asking me something along the lines of if the space shuttle can go past the speed of light how would the astronauts act, basically a impossibility. If somehow God and Satan just withdrew and somehow things ran on autopilot my speculation is that we would stagnate and splinter into smaller groups, then continue to decline which would end in extinction, yes it could take many generations, even many ages. Death would also be final. This speculation is looking at what God does for us, then removing these things.
Yes we are already in such a state, caused by sin.
Yes there is a very strong warning in Hebrews 6:4-6 NIV
I take my work on this world very seriously . I have stated before I would give my life for you or for any other when the time is right . You know how I’ll know when that is don’t you ? Jesus will and has shown me with His love While others seek only to have for themselves I seek to give to others. Still I don’t judge what others do as it is thier decision. But like Kanicbird says, He is always there. But I can tell you already know who Jesus is so pointing out the fact he is thier for you doesn’t always seem like my place . We all have our place in Gods plan mine happens to be a warrior . Warriors don’t get all the glory . In the end, we all will. I just can’t tell you how glad I am to see the others here who do His
will.