the prince of peace?

[Lindsey-Loo]

...continued...

so you wake up every day wanting to hurt someone...i highly doubt that.
or that humanity wakes up every morning wanting to commit evil acts.
you really believe that?
this is what i am referring to when i say division, what the god in the bible claims to have done.

No. Only on Mondays. :149: But all too often, I wake up ****** at someone, or I go to bed mad at someone. I usually start my morning by gossiping with my friends, if not fighting with my parents about the boyfriend who is not a Christian and whose morals they are not too impressed with. They aren't very impressed with my morals, either. I lie to cover for people a lot, and I lie to cover for myself a lot.

Of course, I do volunteer work and I WANT to be a nice young lady, but if you asked me if I were a good person, I would answer with a resounding no. The fact is, even when people want to be good, we too often are not. We don't necessarily want to commit evil acts, but we are drawn to them in many cases.

please show me where in your bible it says there is good in us just as much as there is bad

First, God saw His initial creation of man as good:

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31

Secondly, He warned that eating of the tree would expose man to both good and evil:

For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:5

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
Genesis 3:22

And that this exposure would continue throughout the generations, not just with Adam and Eve. i.e. we all continue to have knowledge of good and evil as adults, though you and I did not physically eat from the tree:

Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
Deuteronomy 1:39

The Bible also makes it clear that humans have the choice to commit evil or good:

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil,
Deuteronomy 30:15

Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.
Leviticus 5:4

We then understand that God sees us as fully able, and in fact expects us, to choose to be good:

And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the LORD swore to your fathers,
Deuteronomy 6:18

Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 12:28

And furthermore, the Bible tells us that we are taught to do good:

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way.
1 Samuel 12:23

Lastly, we are taught that there is punishment for not doing good:

This thing that you have done is not good. As the LORD lives, you deserve to die, because you have not guarded your master, the LORD’s anointed. And now see where the king’s spear is, and the jug of water that was by his head.”
1 Samuel 26:16

These are just the passages I could find in the first few books. There are many more that discuss good and evil, for whoever cares to search.

think of a worm on the ground. it has a limited capacity to understand the world around it, do you think i would care what it thinks?

Lol, as far as I'm aware worms don't actually think at all. Just be nice enough to move it off the sidewalk. I hate to watch them burn up there.

why would you want to limit yourself and why would you want to base your faith on fear?

How do you feel that I'm limiting myself? My faith is based on love. Haven't I already said that if I died right now, I would probably be hell-bound? That scares me, sure, but I believe in and love God, hell or no hell.

 

[waitasec]

Yes, of course building the tower was physical. And though God didn't physically do anything, I agree that he intervened and altered some physical factor in the world. He confused the language, thus separating the people into various cultures and geographies. But His intervention wasn't to alter their physical selves, but their spiritual path. See what I am trying to say? I am obviously doing a bad job explaining myself. :sorry1:

Unity for the right cause is beautiful. But look at the Nazi's. They were unified, yet they wreaked havoc on the modern world. You can't make the blanket statement "unity is good" because unity is obviously not always good. The way I interpret this story, the people were unified for a negative cause. They wanted to make a name for themselves, give themselves the glory, and ultimately put themselves on the same level as God by trying to reach Heaven, which could have easily resulted in the loss of their souls. So yes, I think the tower was an excessively bad thing, even more so when we apply the story to our own lives. This tower was physical, but I think we all have one, some source of pride that we use to build ourselves up.

i'm going for something a deeper, it's the sense of belonging to something that is greater than you. the best way i can explain it is when i first found out i was pregnant. i felt a connection to the cycle of life and it changed my perspective forever.
sure the purpose for unity can be manipulated but we are all attracted to it, right?
from a youth group at church to a concert or a national memorial. do you know what i mean?

We are here to live lives dedicated to God, but if He made us do that, what purpose would it serve? God loves his creation, and I don't believe he would take away our free will.I don't see too much manipulation in the question. It's very basic. Choose God, or do not choose God. Follow him, or do not. He gives us his commandments, and then we either follow them or don't. Noncompliance is of course an option,

well i for one disagree, only because this life is so much more than about me. "i am not the center of the world or of a divine designer and there's nothing special just about being me or i wouldn't be of the opinion of 'why wouldn't god be on my side' " (i paraphrased christopher hitchens)
see in this you find an unsuspecting turn, all of the sudden the believer is, for lack of a better word, arrogant, and the unbeliever is humbled.
it's like looking through a peep hole and expecting whatever it is you see is small enough to fit into your limited capacity of understanding (the worm example) while the unbeliever looks through the same peep hole and recognizes they are too small. sure a worm may not be sentient lets use a chimpanzee, who who does have a sense of self. would you care what a chimp thinks of you?

Oh, I wouldn't say God caused those divisions. People caused those divisions. Using that logic, just about everything is divisive. And then of course, we should even consider that divisive is not the opposite of peaceful. Violent is the opposite of peaceful. Many men of peace like MLK and Ghandi caused divisions, but that doesn't mean they weren't peaceful.

i'm looking at the bigger picture. i brought up constantine because i wanted to give you an example of how the roman catholic church was able to maintain power and control over the people. by dividing them (hierarchy) and with fear, do this or you will suffer eternal suffering.

That's what I've been trying to explain to you this entire time. Any time you sin, you are endangering your soul.

i think it's any time you sin against your truth. your integrity and betray your self respect is when you are in danger of compromising your principals.

The people, in their pride, were trying to reach the heavens. They were trying to place themselves, physically in this case, on the same plane as God and he thwarted that effort, knowing that by committing the sin of pride, they could be lost.

but again, the name they would have called themselves would be MUDD...
this sense of pride in unity is what the founding church fathers used as a means to maintain their control over people.

I think it depends on the scenario as to whether people become divided or united. For example, Republicans and Democrats generally disagree, but they have both expressed their sympathy for the victims in Arizona this week.

this is what i mean, setting aside our differences for a common cause that is beyond who we are as individuals

Oh, perhaps that is so for the individual scientists who created and tested it, but I think we can agree that the atom bomb was not created for the purpose of arrogance and pride

think about that for a second. the audacity to create the ultimate destructive tool is not an act of pride?

Their tower was a blatant display of arrogance and pride, but I think the atom bomb was mostly to murder innocents.

so what about those innocent people who really had nothing to do with pearl harbor. all those innocent children that were left to suffer and die a horrible painful death...who was prideful in the scheme of things and why wouldn't a benevolent god intervene?

No. That's not what I'm saying. Humanity is constantly at odds with each other because we don't take it upon ourselves to understand. I applaud all the members of this forum for making efforts to understand people who are different from them. Anyone can understand with enough effort. Don't you feel like you understand me more just from this short discussion? Bridges can always be built and differences in language, culture, and religion can always be overcome. God even commands Christians to go forth and preach to all the world. He doesn't want us to be divided, but He doesn't want us all living up in some tower either.

well i would argue that preaching to the world isn't trying to bridge the gaps it's creating a form of communication via a one way street.
however, i do think we speak the same language because we like to debate.

I need context to address this. Where in the Bible do you draw this conclusion from?

isn't true, christians believe mankind is born tainted by sin, because of adam's fall from grace and the only way to remove that stain of sin is to accept the remedy jesus offers?

Elaborate?

you did say,

The punishment is not immediate, but you are choosing it of your own free will.

how is that free will? i wouldn't exactly call manipulation by using ultimatums, free will...

I'm not sure that life is God. I don't see how they could be interchangeable. I mean, I can say that I'm living but not that I'm Godding, right?

well, the bible says god breathed life into adam...god was the uncaused cause, in that sense i mean? why separate the indifference of life from gods indifference?

There was actually a decently healthy sect of early "Protestants" throughout history, though obviously they would not have gone by that name. But since the foundation of Christ's church, Catholics were not the only ones trying to follow God. And then again, I think God may have used the Catholic church to preserve His word. When you have a strong faith, you generally believe that God's hand in the world means that everything happens for the best. It's all part of His plan anyway, so I don't stress about the Catholic Church too often. And don't even get me started on the Pope. :jester5: I might insult someone on accident.

i recommend ...
[youtube]9RExQFZzHXQ[/youtube]
YouTube - The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson
a wonderful discussion, at least in my opinion. and...

FRONTLINE: from jesus to christ - the first christians: watch the full program online | PBS

these are both kind of long but since you have a 4 day weekend coming up...

 

[waitasec]

...continued...

No. Only on Mondays. :149: But all too often, I wake up ****** at someone, or I go to bed mad at someone. I usually start my morning by gossiping with my friends, if not fighting with my parents about the boyfriend who is not a Christian and whose morals they are not too impressed with. They aren't very impressed with my morals, either. I lie to cover for people a lot, and I lie to cover for myself a lot.

Of course, I do volunteer work and I WANT to be a nice young lady, but if you asked me if I were a good person, I would answer with a resounding no. The fact is, even when people want to be good, we too often are not. We don't necessarily want to commit evil acts, but we are drawn to them in many cases.

First, God saw His initial creation of man as good:

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31

Secondly, He warned that eating of the tree would expose man to both good and evil:

For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:5

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
Genesis 3:22

And that this exposure would continue throughout the generations, not just with Adam and Eve. i.e. we all continue to have knowledge of good and evil as adults, though you and I did not physically eat from the tree:

Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
Deuteronomy 1:39

The Bible also makes it clear that humans have the choice to commit evil or good:

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil,
Deuteronomy 30:15

Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.
Leviticus 5:4

We then understand that God sees us as fully able, and in fact expects us, to choose to be good:

And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the LORD swore to your fathers,
Deuteronomy 6:18

Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 12:28

And furthermore, the Bible tells us that we are taught to do good:

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way.
1 Samuel 12:23

Lastly, we are taught that there is punishment for not doing good:

This thing that you have done is not good. As the LORD lives, you deserve to die, because you have not guarded your master, the LORD’s anointed. And now see where the king’s spear is, and the jug of water that was by his head.”
1 Samuel 26:16

These are just the passages I could find in the first few books. There are many more that discuss good and evil, for whoever cares to search.

Lol, as far as I'm aware worms don't actually think at all. Just be nice enough to move it off the sidewalk. I hate to watch them burn up there.

How do you feel that I'm limiting myself? My faith is based on love. Haven't I already said that if I died right now, I would probably be hell-bound? That scares me, sure, but I believe in and love God, hell or no hell.

it's interesting to me, with all these scriptures indicating we have the ability to be good, you still think people are fundamentally evil.

my life experience has shown me otherwise...
i lost lost my keys and cell phone at disneyland and someone returned them to lost and found. anther time i lost my wallet in a supermarket, same thing.
strangers have helped me when i needed assistance. and again i think of the shooting in tucson and how people risked their lives to save others...
there is a lot of good in this world, with or without faith in god...

 

[mohammed_beiruti]

but would you be at peace KNOWING your mother is in eternal torment?

as a believer I will choose to be near God , because I am sure I will feel peace.

 

[waitasec]

as a believer I will choose to be near God , because I am sure I will feel peace.

but how can you be sure?
do you feel peace thinking your mother will live in eternal torment?