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Why the Long Wait?

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
Well, you could ignore context, but you'll not get the true picture. That is true of any body of writing, whether profane or religious.

Have you never understood that the same word or idea can have a completely different meaning depending on the context?
You completely forgot to answer my question:

One wonders if by the same logic every thing Paul says to that one specific church in that one specific town at that one specific time only applies to that one specific church in that one specific town at that one specific time as well?​


Care to try it again?
 

rrobs

Well-Known Member
He is a nonreligious believer so he does not believe in the Bible. ;)
He spoke like he did. I wonder why the Bible is one of the only books that people know all about without ever having actually read it for themselves.

Take care.
 

rrobs

Well-Known Member
You completely forgot to answer my question:

One wonders if by the same logic every thing Paul says to that one specific church in that one specific town at that one specific time only applies to that one specific church in that one specific town at that one specific time as well?​


Care to try it again?
Is a day really the same as a thousand years? No. You know that, I know that, and God certainly knows that.

Do you understand that a figure of speech is a literary tool used to emphasize something? The ground is dry it true to fact, but the ground is thirsty is not. Saying the ground is thirsty is a figure of speech called personification. It attaches human characteristics to non human things. It catches the readers attention and makes them pause to understand how really dry the earth is.

Since a day is not literally like a thousand years, it must be a figure of speech. In this case, according to context, there is a coming judgment. It may be today or it may be a thousand years from now. It's all the same to God.

On the other hand, when it comes to a genealogy and the age of all of Jesus' ancestors, it is quite easy to see the 4,000 years. The ages of all his ancestors are given as a fact, not as a figure of speech.

In general, when it comes to understanding the scriptures, it is required that the reader approach it with an open mind. If one is hell bent on criticizing them, they will find plenty of fodder. I could be wrong, but your mind seems to be quite made up as to the falsity of the scriptures. It could very well be a waste of my even time trying to explain this to you, but I'm easily duped and so here we are. One of these days I might learn!

Take care.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
He spoke like he did. I wonder why the Bible is one of the only books that people know all about without ever having actually read it for themselves.

Take care.
He made up his own religion. It is called Discovering the Truth. He believes we can all Discover the Truth about God without any Messengers of God such as Jesus.
 

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
Good question. I'm not aware of any scriptures that would answer the question, so it's anybody's guess.

Three male and three female astronauts are caught up in a mysterious swirling space warp and are forced to land on some unknown habitable planet, only to watch their space vehicle slowly sink in the unstable ground and swallowed by an underground pool of molten Lava.

They know how to build a new vehicle, but now they have to start from scratch. Stop and think how many, many generations it would take, and how many billions of creations their farming, teaching, mining, machine building, scientific descendants, would have to create, before the creator could finally say; "And now let us make a space vehicle, in the image and likeness of the one that was lost?

Surely you don't believe that this is the only universe ever to have existed, each one having to be created from scratch, from the eternal energy which can never be created and never be destroyed.

Our ancient ancestors expressed the belief that our scientists of today are just beginning to come to terms with, and that is, that following each “Big Bang” there comes the “Big Crunch,” when this universe is condensed once again, into the supposedly infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity from which it originated.

“Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non-being, and again from non-being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all, the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.” ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara, or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds would seem as an eternity, or but a moment in time.

‘Manvantara,’ is a creative day as seen in the six days of creation in Genesis, ‘Pralaya,’ is the evening that proceeds the next creative day. The six periods of Creation and the seventh day of rest in which we now exist are referred to in the book of Genesis as the “GENERATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE.”

The English word “Generation,” is translated from the Hebrew “toledoth” which is used in the Old Testament in every instance as ‘births,’ or ‘descendants,’ such as “These are the generations of Adam,” or “these are the generations of Abraham, and Genesis 2: 4; These are the generations of the Universe or the heavens and earth, etc. And the ‘Great Day’ in which the seven generations of the universe are eternally repeated, is the eternal cosmic period, or the eighth eternal day in which those who attain to perfection are allowed to enter, where they shall be surrounded by great light and they shall experience eternal peace, while those who do not attain to perfection are cast back into the refining fires of the seven physical cycles of endless rebirths that perpetually revolve within the eighth eternal cosmic cycle.

Enoch the righteous, wrote that God created an eighth day also, so that it should be the first after his works, and it is a day eternal with neither hours, days, weeks, months or years, for all time is stuck together in one eon, etc, etc, and all who enter into the generation of the Light beings, are able to visit all those worlds that still exist in Space-Time, but not in our time.

A series of worlds following one upon the other-- each world rising a step higher than the previous world, so that every later world brings to ripeness the seeds that were imbedded in the former, and itself then prepares the seed for the universe that will follow it. This is the true resurrection in which all from the previous cycle of universal activity, who still have the judgmental war raging within them, are born again into the endless cycles of physical manifestation, or rebirths.

What do you believe is the best theory we have today as to the origin of this generation of the universe?
 
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rrobs

Well-Known Member
Better yet--why did he create people with the full knowledge that they had flawed characters and would need a redeemer in the first place? Why not just create perfect beings with free will? After all, he loves good and hates sin right?
You can't have perfection without imperfection. That's part of free will. If we could only be perfect there would be no choice at being imperfect, hence no free will, and no free will means no love.

Just keep the bird in the cage. Don't take a chance he'll return if you set him free.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
You can't have perfection without imperfection. That's part of free will. If we could only be perfect there would be no choice at being imperfect, hence no free will, and no free will means no love.

Just keep the bird in the cage. Don't take a chance he'll return if you set him free.

Does God/Jesus have free will? If so, then how do you square that with your idea that free will requires imperfection?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Why did God eventually loose patience with humanity, drown all but a few, then repopulate with the same model that he found so offensive in the first place? How did that work out?

Why not a human 2.0?


You'd think an omniscient god would have better foresight.
 

rrobs

Well-Known Member
Does God/Jesus have free will? If so, then how do you square that with your idea that free will requires imperfection?
Yes, both God and Jesus have free will. Jesus contrasted his will with that of God's in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asked God if there wasn't some other way to redeem man besides the cross. He ended up saying, "not my will, but thine be done."

The existence of imperfection in no way says either God or Jesus themselves are imperfect.

Free will is the ability to choose. If there is perfection and imperfection, we can choose which we want. If there is only perfection, there is no choice, hence no free will or the ability to choose.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Better yet--why did he create people with the full knowledge that they had flawed characters and would need a redeemer in the first place? Why not just create perfect beings with free will? After all, he loves good and hates sin right?

I believe He did that. However free will does not necessarily include wisdom. Wisdom comes from God.
 

Hawkins

Well-Known Member
Why did God wait for 4,000 years before sending the redeemer? Verse references would be helpful.

You don't need to get the money because you have a credit card. The effect of Jesus is credited in the different covenants since Noah.

Jesus brought us the last but most important one which is the New Covenant with God's Grace maximized and with the law part minimized.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
I'm sure you do.
I have concrete, empirical evidence for an old Earth. What evidence do you have to counter it?
And how does evolution fit in?

I believe you think you have evidence but it is not valid evidence. I have evidence that the moon is made of green cheese but it isn't valid evidence.
 
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