Faith in Christ is Completely Logical

Serenity7855 said:

...Redemption, and to receive that knowledge in all humility and faith in Christ, is to make yourself impervious to the fiery darts of Satan. So, in essence, I am throwing down the gauntlet to anyone who thinks they can disprove the logic of the Plan that was devised by God and accepted by Christ. I am looking for miss-shaped jig saw puzzle pieces that do to fit making the finished picture ugly instead of magnificent to behold. I am looking for someone to stump me on any aspect of Gods marvelous work and wonder to bring to pass the salvation and eternal life of mankind. If it cannot be done then even the disbelieved must concede that it is a rational and logical plan.

Click to expand...

It's a bit hard to try and cause a person to entertain doubts when they're "impervious" to our fiery darts though isn't it? Anything we say shall bounce off of your shield of faith, shall it not?
So I won't bother, I'll let the Bible give it a go, you might listen to that;

Ecclesiastes 3 17-21 said:

I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time to judge every deed.”

I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same spirit; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

Click to expand...

God's plan looking any vaguer now? Surely if anyone was aware of God's plan it was Solomon? And yet...

Cephus said:

Well, it is pretty sad that you believe something for which you have no good, credible reason to think it's true and seem pretty proud of yourself for doing it. It's something you ought to be embarrassed by, at least in my opinion.

Click to expand...

You have no real reason to believe I am proud of myself. It is something you cannot know but behold! you seem to know it. Glass houses come to mind.

Cephus said:

There was a time when most people believed the Earth was flat. They were all wrong. There was a time when most people believed the whole universe revolved around the Earth. They were all wrong. Argumentum ad populum is nothing to be proud of.

Click to expand...

You have no proof most people believed the whole universe revolved around the Earth yet you are claiming it is true. I am sure "most people" didn't even think about it so they didn't "believe" anything about the Earth except that the sun rose everyday and it gave them their food and their water. You should be more careful. This is the third time I hear my mind say "how old is that one?"

How do I know most people didn't think about the nature of Earth, like where it was? I have an example. I was raised in the Christian church. I was almost 40 years old before I learned about the trinity. Where did I learn it? I learned it from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Who, by the way, don't believe it.

My point is just because something is believed in and taught does not mean "most people" know about it.

Cephus said:

You're right, if that happens. When has that happened? It hasn't. Most people's "miracles" are finding their car keys and attributing that to supernatural intervention. You just don't see these grand, unquestionable displays. If it happened, I'd have a hard time disagreeing with you that the physical laws as we know them had been violated. Let me know when something like that actually happens.

Click to expand...

1. It is hard to take sincere a person who asks a question then answers it themselves in their own favor and quite incorrectly and in this case even if you were right you would have no way of knowing it. However your new to me and I am bored so I will pretend that did not occur. A strictly rhetorical tactic will seldom be missed by me.
2. It most certainly has happened that countless events have no reasonable explanation what so ever. Just to make this more complicated take turning water into wine. Since you cannot challenge the miraculous explanation for the event you must instead attach it's historical basis. Have at it, don't worry I will give you another chance and example in a minute.
3. I am not talking nor concerned with what most people declare about meaningless events. I am talking about cancers that disappear over night, habits unsuccessfully resisted for years that disappear in a instant and no desire what so ever remains, NDE's, or even much more accessible things like the existence of everything and the fine tuning we find. Heck even certain constants in nature have no natural explanation. Let me narrow this down to one. Pam Reynolds case of consciousness while her brain was dead and drained of blood.
4. Miracles are usually not grand. It is not the nature of the intention that they should be. They consist of tens of thousands of smaller events which defy all attempts at a natural explanation.
5. I take it your position is that far more reasonable but not any more likely claim that miracles have never occurred. Well lets take one that happened to me. I used to have a horrific uncertainty about the doctrine of eternal security. For reasons more complicated than I can explain this became acute. I spent hours almost daily praying about this question. I kept being led to the same person. Twice in the middle of prayer I felt an unstoppable urge to turn on the Tv. It felt weird to want to watch Tv in the middle of prayer but finally gave up and turned it on. Both times the exact same station (The Bible network) was inexplicably on, both times the exact same man was preaching (Charles Stanley), both times he was preaching a sermon of eternal security. I am very suspicious of miracle claims. So I decided to test it. I felt led one day to pray about the issue in my car. So I pulled into the parking lot of a Christian book store. My prayer was that I am going to ask the first person I see for a book on the issue and whatever they suggest I wanted to be from God. I asked one and they recommended (you guessed it) a book by Charles Stanley. Got a reasonable natural probability explanation for that?


However let me be more emphatic. The modern Catholic church for reasons of liability has to be absolutely incredibly skeptical when called into a case of demonic activity. I was once obsessed by this and read a lot on it. Countless secular scholars (Dr.'s and the like) said they were way less skeptical that the Catholic specialists that were called in. They literally have to eliminate every possible natural explanation before even a petition can be drafted to the church for consideration. Yet countless approved possessions are on record.

Well this gets our feet wet anyway.

Cephus said:

There was a time when most people believed the Earth was flat. They were all wrong. There was a time when most people believed the whole universe revolved around the Earth. They were all wrong. Argumentum ad populum is nothing to be proud of.

Click to expand...

This is an fallacy if I had used it as proof. Popularity is not a proof, it is suggestive of a sufficiency of evidence if the claim is knowable. Fallacies are overworked crutches used by non-theists. Be careful when using them.
For example if 1000 lived in a remote village. 900 of them claimed to know a guy named Larry, 50 claimed to have heard of him, and 50 claimed no Larry existed.

It is no fallacy to claim:

1. Larry probably exists and the evidence suggests that.

It is a fallacy to suggest that a group being wrong about a thing is evidence they are wrong about another.

However I am out of time and leaving and can't remember the name for that one. Have a good one.

nazz said:

Rather than ask you a question I will just tell you why I no longer believe in the conventional Christian view. It began when I realized that the idea of a just God sending people to eternal torture was a contradiction. There is more but I will start there.

Click to expand...

Well, if you haven't noticed, I to am not a Congregationalist in any denomination either. Religious denominations have strayed so far from the Plan of Redemption I cannot go along with doctrines that seem to me to be false and, even worse, without a purpose, without any reason for our being, without any reason for having to endure this earthly probation. What kind of religion is it that has no reason for us being here. I have had so many conversations with pastors and priests who have no idea why we are striving to emulate Jesus Christ or even what his mission was. Most think that he came to perform miracles and teach the word of God, which is true, in part he did, but without realizing that his purpose was set before the world was and that without him agreeing to suffer and die, as he did, there would be no reasoning behind our existence and for this journey in mortality. Sadly, prophecy is being fulfilled and religion is crumbling under false teachings and belief in illogical fairy tales style deity that effectively stupefy the word of God causing Congregationalists to disassociate themselves from such hocus pocus.

Let me conclude for you by giving you an example of false teachings. The only people who will inherit torture in outer darkness is the third of the host of heaven that followed Satan, Satan himself and the sons of prediction. Even our most hideous cereal murders will be dammed to a non-progressive kingdom with like minded people. It is all in scripture. You have been received.

Serenity7855 said:

Well, if you haven't noticed, I to am not a Congregationalist in any denomination either. Religious denominations have strayed so far from the Plan of Redemption I cannot go along with doctrines that seem to me to be false and, even worse, without a purpose, without any reason for our being, without any reason for having to endure this earthly probation. What kind of religion is it that has no reason for us being here. I have had so many conversations with pastors and priests who have no idea why we are striving to emulate Jesus Christ or even what his mission was. Most think that he came to perform miracles and teach the word of God, which is true, in part he did, but without realizing that his purpose was set before the world was and that without him agreeing to suffer and die, as he did, there would be no reasoning behind our existence and for this journey in mortality. Sadly, prophecy is being fulfilled and religion is crumbling under false teachings and belief in illogical fairy tales style deity that effectively stupefy the word of God causing Congregationalists to disassociate themselves from such hocus pocus.

Let me conclude for you by giving you an example of false teachings. The only people who will inherit torture in outer darkness is the third of the host of heaven that followed Satan, Satan himself and the sons of prediction. Even our most hideous cereal murders will be dammed to a non-progressive kingdom with like minded people. It is all in scripture. You have been received.

Click to expand...

OK, then, it is hard to try to provide any refutation if I don't know exactly what it is you believe. Making you good give a short outline as to what you see as the Plan of Redemption?

Cephus said:

There was a time when most people believed the Earth was flat. They were all wrong. There was a time when most people believed the whole universe revolved around the Earth. They were all wrong. Argumentum ad populum is nothing to be proud of.

Click to expand...

Cephus said:

Nobody can prove anything to God believers, they're not interested in what's true, only what makes them feel good.

Click to expand...

Cephus said:

No, it's the truth. One only has to debate with believers to find that out, people who are totally incapable or unwilling to question their beliefs to find out if they're true. They just insist that they are. If you're insulted by the truth, the problem isn't on my side but on yours.

Click to expand...

Cephus said:

And you have the argument from ignorance. Maybe you ought to stop appealing to logical fallacies.

Click to expand...

You say "Most people believed the Earth was flat.....most people believed the whole universe revolved around the Earth"

Is that the truth?

Isn't the truth people who wondered about the nature of the Earth were TOLD that it was flat and was the center of the universe? But you say "most believed" it. You do not know what people believed.
Believe means "accept as true, feel sure of the truth of". So? You say you know what people then believed and felt and we say we know God. Doesn't that make you like us?

You better take a shower. How deep is that hole going to be?

nazz said:

Where in the first chapters of Genesis are these ideas found? Where does it say everything was perfect and that man was immortal?

Click to expand...

Genesis 1

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Serenity7855 said:

Genesis 1

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Click to expand...

Not seeing an answer to my question there.

Some people assume "made in God's image" means perfect and immortal.

savagewind said:

Some people assume "made in God's image" means perfect and immortal.

Click to expand...

Ah, okay. That would contradict other statements in those chapters though.

Halcyon said:

It's a bit hard to try and cause a person to entertain doubts when they're "impervious" to our fiery darts though isn't it? Anything we say shall bounce off of your shield of faith, shall it not?
So I won't bother, I'll let the Bible give it a go, you might listen to that;

God's plan looking any vaguer now? Surely if anyone was aware of God's plan it was Solomon? And yet...

Click to expand...

Halcyon said:

It's a bit hard to try and cause a person to entertain doubts when they're "impervious" to our fiery darts though isn't it? Anything we say shall bounce off of your shield of faith, shall it not?
So I won't bother, I'll let the Bible give it a go, you might listen to that;

God's plan looking any vaguer now? Surely if anyone was aware of God's plan it was Solomon? And yet...

Click to expand...

When you read from rogue versions of the word of God and not the authorised version you are bound to get discrepancies that change the meaning of whole quotes, especially when quoted out of contex. It is all a part of Satan's plan to distroy mans belief in God. How it should read.

Ecclesiastes 3:17-21 King James Version (KJV)

17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

nazz said:

Not seeing an answer to my question there.

Click to expand...

Really, let me highlight it for you.

Genesis 1

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God is a perfect being. If you make something in His likeness, like a carbon copy, then that copy will also be perfect.

Serenity7855 said:

Really, let me highlight it for you.

Genesis 1

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God is a perfect being. If you make something in His likeness, like a carbon copy, then that copy will also be perfect.

Click to expand...

Had no trouble reading it the first time, thanks. The text says God said his creation was good, not perfect. And he later indicates that man is mortal and wants to keep him that way.

nazz said:

Had no trouble reading it the first time, thanks. The text says God said his creation was good, not perfect. And he later indicates that man is mortal and wants to keep him that way.

Click to expand...

He said "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:" His likeness and image is perfect. You are being finicky because I have proven my point.

Perhaps you can provide the quote that confirms your second claim. I can the see it for myself as I am unable to find.

Serenity7855 said:

He said "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:" His likeness and image is perfect. You are being finicky because I have proven my point.

Click to expand...

This kind of response does not bode well.

Perhaps you can provide the quote that confirms your second claim. I can the see it for myself as I am unable to find.

Click to expand...

Gen 3:22 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

nazz said:

This kind of response does not bode well.

Click to expand...

Genesis 2

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Meaning that if they left it alone they would live forever

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Genesis 3

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Meaning that if they left it alone they would live forever

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

All the time they were perfect they were unaware of their reproductive organs

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

He was now mortal and would eventually die

All these scripture talkabout the fall from immortality to mortality, from perfection to imperfection. It is a crucial requirement for the plan to work whichis why God made it clear, to those who have eyes to see, that they sinned and had to leave the garden as it was a perfect garden so no unclean thing could dwell there. Genesis also makes reference to that confirming my claim.

Gen 3:22 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

Click to expand...

God said "This man has become like one of us", and then qualifies it by saying "to know good and evil"

There is another pretty obvious indicator that Adam was in a state of perfection. A point of continuity that must be maintained other wise the entire plan would be a sham. God is perfect both physically and intellectually. He is omnipotent and omniscient. He cannot dwell in the presence of imperfection. That being the case he could not have dwell upon this earth that is a haven of imperfection and create a human being from the imperfect soil of the ground. The Garden of Eden was in a state of perfection, or, as some call it, Celestualised, in order for God to come here and create a man from the perfect dust of the celestualised earth. There was no other way that He could do it. But there was a problem. A celestualised body does not need to reproduce as it will live for an eternity. So how would we get our time on earth?

Adam had to fall and become mortal to fulfil Gods commandments to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth. God could not tell Adam to sin as that would be bearing false witness which would instantly render him imperfect. So, God gave him two commandments. 1. Go forth and multiply and replenish the earth. 2. Do not eat from the fruit of the tree as you will surely die. Can you see the subtlety in these two commandments. In order to gain knowledge of procreation they needed to eat from the tree. In order for them to multiply they had to fall to mortality giving them the physical ability to reproduce. And to add salt to the wounds, they had no idea that they had to eat from the fruit of the tree in order to sin and fall into mortality, at whichpoint they could obey the commandment to multiply. They had to genuinely sin and didn't know it. Satan thought he was thwarting Gods plan but he was essentual in the role that he played in it all. No tempter, no circuming to temptation, therefore, no sin. No sin, no me and you. A perfect plan, in every way, was set in motion.

Hey Serenity! What's with skipping over the very first reply to your OP?

Skwim said:

Serenity7855 said:

] I am looking for someone to stump me on any aspect of Gods marvelous work and wonder to bring to pass the salvation and eternal life of mankind.

Click to expand...

I assume by "stump me" you mean you can explain any such aspect to your satisfaction. Not much of a challenge is it. On the other hand, if you're willing to explain any such aspect to the satisfaction of others, then you're on. Satisfy me that keeping others from his big plan of salvation---either by not reveling it to them or sending incompetent messengers to explain it---qualifies as a marvelous work.

Click to expand...

So, address my stumper or admit you've been stumped.

Okay, Serenity, you confirmed my first suspicions. Carry on...