We’re not talking about that. What you are doing is putting the Bible above God. Some people wrote that God created the heavens and the earth about 6,000 years ago. God wrote directly, in the stars and in CBR, that the universe was created billions of years ago. Yet you bow to the book, not to God.
That is really funny, coming from a Christian. How many commandments from that book do you guys keep these days? Oh, I know you say they don’t count any more and blah blah blah, but this verse is pretty clear, and you people violate it all the time.
So, you’re a polytheist, and think God let these minor gods run around the East confusing people? Nice guy.
If you believed in evolution you didn’t understand it. No belief is necessary. Do you at least agree that the natural world looks very old, and that life seems to have evolved? If you understand and accept the evidence, why do you think God made the world to contradict the Bible? Was God lying, or were the writers of the Bible ignorant of the real story?
(bolding mine)
I do not think you understand what “free will” means. If we have no choice but to kneel before God, how can we do it by free will? Free will=choice.
For me personally Jesus has proven Himself true and faithful and above all.
I don’t pretend to know much about other faiths or religions, but a assumption I have about them leaves only Jesus as the true God. Here are some aspects that IMHO differentiate Jesus from other gods:
1 No works required for salvation
2 Salivation is absolute and irrevocable
3 totally personal relationship between God and man
4 no schooling required
5 unconditional Love, Loves us inspite of who we are, even when we sin
6 Anyone accepted at any time of life
7 Would rather die then ever live without us.
The Word is God.
At one time, God spoke only to His prophets and high priests, occasionally kings as well. The general population went through these people to get to God. They also went to specific places to worship and God was in that place (i.e. the Temple). This is no longer the case, we are not to put anyone between us and God, God dwells in each of His believers and is willing to talk to us and we can worship anywhere. With so many people in direct communication with God, He would have to give us a absolute standard for us to compare if what we are hearing is from Him. This is the Word of God, the absolute standard to test everything against. God would have no reason at all to lie in His Word, nor is He able to do so. In His Word is the instructions of how to find Him, how to test what is true, but it does involve starting over and being willing to learn His way. How do you expect to know the truth of God without following His instructions on how to find Him and His truth but go about it in your own way?
You want to know why the CBR is inconsistent with His Word, seek Him, get to know Him then ask Him and He will tell you, He will convince you that His Word is true, if you just follow His ways and not follow on your own ways.
We are under grace, not the law, but we are to act in the Spirit, not the flesh. Or in other words we are to let Jesus live through us and not go after our own desires. As such we won’t intentionally add or subtract to the Word unless we fall to the flesh, in the flesh we face the consequences but we can repent and then walk in the spirit forgiven and the curse transferred to the cross. This grace is for the believers, unbelievers who know the law will be judged by it, those who don’t know will be judged apart from it.
According to God even men are gods (Ps 82:6), so the bar is not set all that high. And yes men do run around confusing people.
Since it was proved false to me, yes it was a belief.
yes
The (illusion of this) world was given to Satan within the limits established by God, this is what Adam and Eve bought into and where we must live for now. Why would Satan make it look like God’s Word is true?
Well, I hereby found my own religion. It’s called Neilism, and we’ll pray to a God who does all the things you say you like, plus free milk and cookies.
Let me know when you’ve converted. I’ll send you a membership card.
We have free will here, we don’t have to bow down physically but we can. That free will to bow down will no longer exist, it won’t even appear to be a choice, it will be what we do and what we desire to do and rejoice over it.
Again it’s only some aspects, and not the primary motivation. It’s the simplicity of salvation and the Love expressed by God to man that makes Jesus unique and very desirable as my God. (and all the milk and cookies are His)
Well, at least we know what you really believe in now.
First, if the Bible is not actually the word of God, then saying it is faulty isn’t saying that God lies, is it?
Second, when you try to prove a program correct, and have an issue, the problem can be with the program or with your proof - or with the specifications you are comparing it against. You are giving us no reason, except your unsubstantiated faith, to make us thing that the Bible is perfect. When we look at the world, and see it contradicts the Bible, we can either close our eyes to the world as you are doing or admit that there might be some errors that crept in.
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? You are acting as if repeatable and verified scientific observations and theories which successfully predict observations are equivalent to moral judgments. They are not.
The passage, which you quoted, says commandments, which is the law. It says nothing about being under grace. You claim to worship the Bible, but you seem to have no problem distorting it to match your ideas of Christianity. If you are going to ignore a Biblical verse, you should at least not have enough chutzbah to quote it.
And by proved I assume you mean it doesn’t match your reading of Genesis, right? You are about a million light years away from any reasonable meaning of proof.
Who created the world anyway, God or Satan? Not only does God let Satan run around using his powers against God’s creations, but God lets Satan set things up so that people using the reason God gave them must conclude that God (aka The Bible) is false. And then God damns these people. Nice God you got there.
I don’t believe in God because they hypothesis that the common variety Western God doesn’t exist fits the facts better than the one that he does. But back when I was a kid and believed in God, I never believed in the monster that you seem to believe in.
Please don’t take this as sarcasm, but I have honestly tried this, and I have received no answer. If anything i’d say my honest openness is an ongoing and not merely a “Well, i’ll sit here and be open to it for a minute or so”, but a genuine willingness to be granted faith. So it seems to me as though more may be needed.
Out of interest, i’d like to ask why it is we should trust the Bible, it taking the form of man’s words. Surely, if God is able to get across his ideas and meanings entirely correctly and without flaw utilising the mediums of man, he could do so in other forms, also?
Kanicbird, Christian to Christian, I think you may have missed something important. You quoted Paul a couple of times, but Jesus, Himself, had something rather important to say. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Christ commands us to love God with all our minds, as well as hearts. (Here’s a cite for those who need one.)
As I see it, denying the marvelous complexity of evolution, the big bang, string theory, and science in general in favor of a more simplistic, “God did it exactly as some folks wrote it down a few thousand years ago” approach is failing to love God with the mind He gave me and others and is therefore sinful. I see exploring how the universe came about and how everything works together as a form of seeking a deeper understanding of God and the marvelous ways in which He created the universe and, to me, it only affirms the presence of a Creator and increases my awe of Him. Illusions and special effects are simple. Just ask any magician or guy who makes science fiction movies. To set everything in motion so that the world would wind up the way it has is far more difficult and far more inspiring to me. You, in your heart, know that evolution and such is all an illusion. In my heart, I am certain this is real and marvelous, and, as God is recorded as saying after one story of creation in Genesis, it is GOOD!
Then again, that’s just my opinion, and that and a couple of bucks will get you a cup of overpriced coffee.
I do remember some of our earlier conversations, and I don’t take it as sarcasm at all. You have met the requirements, you have asked God to reveal Himself to you, and you are willing to accept Him as your God, how and when He does is up to Him however and we can’t rush God’s timeline. The path He uses to bring you to Him is up to Him and may involve some paths that may at times seem to be leading you away from Him. Trust that if God exists, He knows what He is doing.
The Word is eternal it is beyond man’s ability to change. The scriptures (Bible) is a attempt of a physical copy of the Word, if that attempt is made in good faith He can and will use it even if there are transcription errors. He does use other forms, such as visions and dreams, but every one should be tested against the Word. It is the standard to measure everything we think is of Him.
As for man writing the scriptures, God uses man all the time in His work. It’s His primary method for working here, it is God working through us however, not we ourselves working. I have had God do things through me, and it is amazing when it happens. I’ve been given words to say, places to go and other things and the results of God working through us is perfection even though we ourselves are imperfect.
The notion that we must deny that which is before our very eyes, if it appears to contradict the Bible, was the straw that eventually broke the camel’s back for me. My adherence to creationism became a miserable, depressing pit - a prison for my mind - which could not be allowed to think and reason for itself, but had to be constrained to a set pattern, which in all honesty did not fit reality.
The same reality in which the Bible exists. If I couldn’t accept the reality of physical evidence, how could it be OK to trust that the Bible in my hands was what I thought it to be?
If our minds have a purpose, it is to reason, to inquire, to understand and wonder, not to be shut away in a box and be forced to think in one way only.
The verses you link to refer to Love the Lord with (your all/everything within you). His creation is awesome, I never denied it. Our physical world however is just a shadow of what really is, and the sync of man’s science of this shadow speaks to the glory of God. But there is much more, as the shadow has a direct relationship to the spiritual world that God has created but is hidden to us. It is another level to discover.
The way we go about exploring the world can be done in 2 ways, man’s best efforts, or by the Word of God, which one shows Love for God? Which way shows Loving God with everything within you? I would say following God’s instruction on how we should use our minds:
Seems to put the order straight. Understand what God says first then move on to creation.
not that we have to deny what is before our very eyes, but ask God how the contradiction fits, let Him explain it. In my experience He will.
This has not been my experience, nor could I see how it could be. When the truth is revealed, it is the truth that sets you free. What I have found personally is the scriptures are so literal and so true that we are not capable of understanding them and need God to teach us them, not try to figure it out for ourselves.
This is something that’s up to God to prove. He has shown me that His Word is eternal and beyond the ability of man to alter, it is above this world.
Our minds were designed to worship God and to marvel at Him. Since the fall of man, it has been put to other uses.