Olinda
Member
This was answered in post #71.
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Assuming THE FLOOD Did Happen . . .
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
According to Genesis Adam walked with God.
Have you withdrawn from our conversation? I'd really like to know the answer to my free will questions.
Sorry John I missed this one....
No "esoteric skills or knowledge" required...just a love for God, a desire for the truth, and a heart and mind that are not closed to the leading of God's spirit.
When Jesus said we would "know the truth and the truth will set [us] free"...he was talking about the impact of the truth on a receptive heart. If you remember the parable about the sower and the seeds he had falling on places that were not conducive to growth, this is referring to the hearts of individuals who are not pre-disposed to accepting the truth from God's word. I was raised in a church but nothing it ever taught me rang true. When I started studying the Bible (as opposed to church doctrine) and I let go of all that rubbish, I found the truth, and it set me free from all those shackles. I can only give you my own experience. Jesus said that some hearts would be like fine soil, conducive for the seeds to grow. That is how I felt.
What do you think free will is?
In the case of abusing free will, there are victims who get caught in the fall-out. Imposing their will on others, they do harm, just as God warned. Every act of violence committed is an abuse of free will....theirs and their victims.
God is conducting an exercise so that all humanity can see what happens when free will is abused and God's commands are ignored. When the exercise is over and the precedents are committed to the annals of man's history, no rebel will ever be able to cause harm to another for the rest of forever. As for the victims of all suffering in the world, God has promised to remove every last cause of suffering and actually erase the sadness of it.
Isaiah 65 is prophetic.....God promises....
"For look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be called to mind,
Nor will they come up into the heart." (Isaiah 65:17)
In the new world to come, no previous experience will ever haunt us again. (2 Peter 3:13)
No, all God did was prevent them from materializing again. They still had a lot of work to do, trying to corrupt the Jews before the Messiah came. They did a good job.
God has never physically been in contact with any humans. We would not survive the experience. He is always represented by angels.
He "walked" with Adam, but not physically. He can be "with" us by means of his spirit which if you recall, he sent to Jesus when he began his ministry. We have communication with God but we don't need to be in his physical presence for our prayers to be heard.
The majority of humans are not going to heaven...what makes you think they are?
God put humans on earth......he already had millions of "sons" in heaven. The earth was created and prepared for us as our permanent home. God never changed that arrangement. He just chose some to act as kings and priests to assist Jesus in returning mankind to their original state of physical perfection. That is what God's kingdom is....the means by which God returns all things back to their beginning. (Isaiah 55:11)
An act of good is not an abuse of free will though, is it? It is an appropriate use of free will. If we all did that, there would be no problem....but we know that just doesn't happen. There will always be those who spoil everything for everyone else.
In Eden what did the forbidden fruit represent, do you think? What did Adam actually do when he ate that fruit?
God has always had an organized people. He is an organized God.....the devil likes to organize people too.
Jesus said you can tell a good tree by the fruit it produces.....the good fruit is Christian conduct. Not the sort that picks and chooses what it will do and what it won't....so look for the ones who will not support corrupt politics...who will not be found shedding human blood....who will not be engaged in illegal pursuits and who try to be helpful to their neighbors whenever they can.....all because they love God and are trying their best to obey the teachings of his son. These ones will be out doing what Jesus trained them to do.."preaching about God's Kingdom in all the inhabited earth". (Matthew 24:14)
No "esoteric skills or knowledge" required...just a love for God, a desire for the truth, and a heart and mind that are not closed to the leading of God's spirit.
When Jesus said we would "know the truth and the truth will set [us] free"...he was talking about the impact of the truth on a receptive heart. If you remember the parable about the sower and the seeds he had falling on places that were not conducive to growth, this is referring to the hearts of individuals who are not pre-disposed to accepting the truth from God's word. I was raised in a church but nothing it ever taught me rang true. When I started studying the Bible (as opposed to church doctrine) and I let go of all that rubbish, I found the truth, and it set me free from all those shackles. I can only give you my own experience. Jesus said that some hearts would be like fine soil, conducive for the seeds to grow. That is how I felt.
What do you think free will is?
In the case of abusing free will, there are victims who get caught in the fall-out. Imposing their will on others, they do harm, just as God warned. Every act of violence committed is an abuse of free will....theirs and their victims.
God is conducting an exercise so that all humanity can see what happens when free will is abused and God's commands are ignored. When the exercise is over and the precedents are committed to the annals of man's history, no rebel will ever be able to cause harm to another for the rest of forever. As for the victims of all suffering in the world, God has promised to remove every last cause of suffering and actually erase the sadness of it.
Isaiah 65 is prophetic.....God promises....
"For look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be called to mind,
Nor will they come up into the heart." (Isaiah 65:17)
In the new world to come, no previous experience will ever haunt us again. (2 Peter 3:13)
No, all God did was prevent them from materializing again. They still had a lot of work to do, trying to corrupt the Jews before the Messiah came. They did a good job.
God has never physically been in contact with any humans. We would not survive the experience. He is always represented by angels.
He "walked" with Adam, but not physically. He can be "with" us by means of his spirit which if you recall, he sent to Jesus when he began his ministry. We have communication with God but we don't need to be in his physical presence for our prayers to be heard.
The majority of humans are not going to heaven...what makes you think they are?
God put humans on earth......he already had millions of "sons" in heaven. The earth was created and prepared for us as our permanent home. God never changed that arrangement. He just chose some to act as kings and priests to assist Jesus in returning mankind to their original state of physical perfection. That is what God's kingdom is....the means by which God returns all things back to their beginning. (Isaiah 55:11)
An act of good is not an abuse of free will though, is it? It is an appropriate use of free will. If we all did that, there would be no problem....but we know that just doesn't happen. There will always be those who spoil everything for everyone else.
In Eden what did the forbidden fruit represent, do you think? What did Adam actually do when he ate that fruit?
God has always had an organized people. He is an organized God.....the devil likes to organize people too.
Jesus said you can tell a good tree by the fruit it produces.....the good fruit is Christian conduct. Not the sort that picks and chooses what it will do and what it won't....so look for the ones who will not support corrupt politics...who will not be found shedding human blood....who will not be engaged in illegal pursuits and who try to be helpful to their neighbors whenever they can.....all because they love God and are trying their best to obey the teachings of his son. These ones will be out doing what Jesus trained them to do.."preaching about God's Kingdom in all the inhabited earth". (Matthew 24:14)
InChrist
Free4ever
Canis lupus famliliaris
Web page
Domestic dog (Canis familiaris) longevity, ageing, and life history
Skwim
Veteran Member
Yup. The species Canis lupus.
But just to make sure you understand the difference between Canis lupus familiaris and Canis familiaris---your post here doesn't indicate you do---Canis is the genus of mammals that dogs, wolves, and coyotes belong to, and lupus is the species designation for dogs and wolves within the genus (coyotes belong to the species latrans). And in distinguishing all the members of lupus from one another, each are further classified in the rank of subspecies. As it turns out, within C. lupus there are quite a few subspecies, such as: C. l. lupus (the Eurasian wolf), C.l. albus, (the tundra wolf), C. l. campestris (the Steppe wolf), and C. l. familiaris (the domestic dog).
So while dogs are distinguished from all other mammals in the Canis genus by their subspecies classification, familiaris, they are still members of the lupus species of Canis, and therefore designated as the species: Cains lupus and not Canis familiaris.
NOTE: The only reason one would list dogs as Canis familiaris is because their information comes from an outdated source. Twenty-five years ago, in 1993, the dog was reclassified from Canis familiaris to C. lupus familiaris. A change long ago enough that there should be no excuse for using the old classification. Your web page should be ashamed of itself for continuing to classify dogs "as Canis familiaris for practical reasons." The only "practical reason" I can see is that originally the web page used the classification Canis familiaris throughout, and it wasn't until the error was brought to their attention that, instead of going to the bother of correcting the whole page, it simply mentioned the correction in passing. Practical perhaps, but hardly excusable.
.
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NP
I disagree, there was a time in my life when I fitted all that criteria and I found nothing.
Then our experiences are different, when I started studying the Bible that's when I realised the Christian God did not exist.
To act as you want or at your own discretion.
So in other words there are times when people do not have free will.
Wishful thinking in my opinion. We all crave an idealistic life but most of us are smart enough to know that can't happen so the promise of it in the afterlife is a strong attraction even though there is zero evidence to support the idea.
Interpretation... I would have to read them in context and I don't have time at the moment but I will latter today.
You can't have it both ways, either there is free will and God doesn't interfere or God does interfere.
I'm a simple bloke with a limited education and when I read that God walked with Adam then I interpret it as God walked with Adam. I honestly can't see how it could be interpreted differently.
I don't think anyone is going to heaven. I'm commenting on your idea of heaven where free will still exists. If so then no matter how few make it there will be some who crave more and will abuse the privilege, it's human nature.
And half of them rebelled. Either heaven is not that great or it's an indication of the future, there will be rebels.
It can be, if my friend is drunk and decides he will drive home and I take his keys so he can't, I would consider that an act of good but I have taken his free will.
The knowledge of good and evil.
I've never heard of an organised religion that does not hold its own selfish agenda first and foremost.
In my experience it doesn't matter what someone believes, there is good and evil in all groups. I was going to type out a long winded story about a storm in which a tree fell on my house but I need to get going and you would probably interpret it as me having a go at JW's.
John, I apologise in advance for the length of this, but there is so much to discuss....
If you studied the Bible with Christendom's version of Christianity in your mind, then I'm not surprised. All I saw in church was hypocrisy and picking and choosing what parts of Christ's teachings they would adopt and which ones they could ignore with impunity. I came to realise that most of their teachings were not from Jesus anyway. A corrupted church had adopted them from paganism, centuries before.
Most people I knew went to church out of a sense of duty, not because they had or wanted a relationship with God or Christ.
They picked their 'Christianity' up at the door and left it behind on their way out. That just felt so wrong.
I walked out on that religious system, but I never threw the baby out with the bathwater. I knew God was there...I just had to find him, but as it turned out, he found me.
That is the whole point.....by giving humans the opportunity to see first hand what happens when others rob us of our free will, it sends a strong message that acting within the parameters set by God, will never allow bad things to happen. If we want free will to be a gift, then we have to treat the will of others with respect and always evaluate how our actions or words will impact on them. It doesn't mean that we will never step on anyone's toes but it should never be with malice.
Being intelligent creatures, we have deductive abilities and as parents, we know how good it would be if our children just obeyed us, because we always have their best interests at heart. But we also know that words don't always get the message across as effectively as experience does. What we experience teaches us first hand what words never can. We don't forget a bad experience. It makes us wary about what we do in the future.
God's words were ignored in Eden, even though the penalty was extremely serious....so experience was his next best option, whilst keeping free will as the gift it was meant to be, he allowed us to see what abusing it would lead to.
Why do you think humankind have the collective desire to live that ideal life? Why are we drawn to paradisaic locations, even for a short vacation? Why do we all have an acute sense that this life is not the one we should have signed up for? Why do we all expect that life should be way better than what we have?
The Bible does not teach that we have an afterlife.....there is nothing that survives death in man. What the Bible holds out is the promise of a restoration of what God originally created. We are promised a restoration of this life....only with all rebels expelled. Imagine the most pristine locations on earth and then eliminate those who will greedily exploit it and spoil it to make money. Then add everlasting life in perfect health, with true peace and security. Isn't that what we all desire?
I love Isaiah's prophesies......they are so comforting. Like all prophesy, they have a small real time application with a larger, future fulfillment. e.g Isaiah 2:2-4 is about the final part of the days....the end times. Chs 11 and 65 contain foregleams of life in the new earth.
This is why I asked you what you think "free will" is. It isn't really "free"....it has to be exercised within the boundaries set by God, or else this life that we are living right now is what results....do you see why we needed to experience it for ourselves? Who would want to return to living in this world if you had a better one to choose?
Adam was not the only one said to "walk with the true God"...many men of faith like Noah and Enoch were said to do this....it doesn't mean physically walking with him, because that is not possible. It means walking according to God's instruction....allowing him to educate and mold us.
If you think for a moment where free will was exercised before the creation of man, you can understand that angels too have free will....or else satan could never have rebelled. The demons could never have joined him if they had no choice.
By allowing both humans and angels to exercise their free will, even to the detriment of faithful ones, we prove by our own response to wickedness, how we feel about what is good and what is evil. That is what the fruit in Eden represented. God's 'children' were not created to determine for themselves what was good and bad because basically, they aren't very good at it. The tree represented God's right to determine what was good and bad for all his intelligent creation. Look at the world and see that humans can turn good into bad and bad into good. If God is the sole arbiter, then problems are greatly reduced.
Free will was never tested in the spirit realm before the creation of humans, so it was a catalyst for angels as well as humans. The devil had no one of lower status who could see him as a god until humans came along. Sorting out these issues and testing all intelligent creatures out to see who can appreciate the gift, or who wants to abuse it to hold power over others, is what this time period is all about. At the end of it all, God has those who can follow his direction without complaint both in heaven and on earth. Precedents are then set for all eternity to come. Free will is preserved as the gift it was meant to be and if anyone in the future wants to push the envelope, they will be eliminated from existence because the trial has already concluded. Judgment will be swift.
If you are preventing him from harming others, because his ability to make rational decisions has been compromised, then the exercise of your free will trumps his.
In this world, no one is perfect. Any organisation of imperfect people is going to to be affected by fallen human nature and things are bound to go wrong because of it...God does the best with what he has. Its obviously not quite time for this exercise to finish, but we have hope that it won't be long. In the meantime we will just continue doing what we were told to do....preach the good news about God's kingdom. (Matthew 24:14)
Look at the history of ancient Israel....do you see any perfect people? Their imperfections did not prevent God from using them as his nation and he let them know in no uncertain terms when they had disobeyed his laws, what he thought of them. Conversely, he blessed the socks off them when they were obedient. So there we have the history of God's dealings with the only nation on earth that were bound by his laws. The Bible is a record of man's activities and it has examples of both good and bad so that we are not left in any doubt which is which.
All we can do is our best and God will remind us if we have overstepped his commands.
Compared with Christendom......I can't compare them as they are opposite ends of the scale.
I'd have to hear the story but again, if its a one off, you can't judge the entire brotherhood on the actions of a few.
We do our best to create good apples...but occasionally some don't 'ripen' as quickly as we would hope.
If you studied the Bible with Christendom's version of Christianity in your mind, then I'm not surprised. All I saw in church was hypocrisy and picking and choosing what parts of Christ's teachings they would adopt and which ones they could ignore with impunity. I came to realise that most of their teachings were not from Jesus anyway. A corrupted church had adopted them from paganism, centuries before.
Most people I knew went to church out of a sense of duty, not because they had or wanted a relationship with God or Christ.
They picked their 'Christianity' up at the door and left it behind on their way out. That just felt so wrong.
I walked out on that religious system, but I never threw the baby out with the bathwater. I knew God was there...I just had to find him, but as it turned out, he found me.
That is the whole point.....by giving humans the opportunity to see first hand what happens when others rob us of our free will, it sends a strong message that acting within the parameters set by God, will never allow bad things to happen. If we want free will to be a gift, then we have to treat the will of others with respect and always evaluate how our actions or words will impact on them. It doesn't mean that we will never step on anyone's toes but it should never be with malice.
Being intelligent creatures, we have deductive abilities and as parents, we know how good it would be if our children just obeyed us, because we always have their best interests at heart. But we also know that words don't always get the message across as effectively as experience does. What we experience teaches us first hand what words never can. We don't forget a bad experience. It makes us wary about what we do in the future.
God's words were ignored in Eden, even though the penalty was extremely serious....so experience was his next best option, whilst keeping free will as the gift it was meant to be, he allowed us to see what abusing it would lead to.
Why do you think humankind have the collective desire to live that ideal life? Why are we drawn to paradisaic locations, even for a short vacation? Why do we all have an acute sense that this life is not the one we should have signed up for? Why do we all expect that life should be way better than what we have?
The Bible does not teach that we have an afterlife.....there is nothing that survives death in man. What the Bible holds out is the promise of a restoration of what God originally created. We are promised a restoration of this life....only with all rebels expelled. Imagine the most pristine locations on earth and then eliminate those who will greedily exploit it and spoil it to make money. Then add everlasting life in perfect health, with true peace and security. Isn't that what we all desire?
I love Isaiah's prophesies......they are so comforting. Like all prophesy, they have a small real time application with a larger, future fulfillment. e.g Isaiah 2:2-4 is about the final part of the days....the end times. Chs 11 and 65 contain foregleams of life in the new earth.
This is why I asked you what you think "free will" is. It isn't really "free"....it has to be exercised within the boundaries set by God, or else this life that we are living right now is what results....do you see why we needed to experience it for ourselves? Who would want to return to living in this world if you had a better one to choose?
Adam was not the only one said to "walk with the true God"...many men of faith like Noah and Enoch were said to do this....it doesn't mean physically walking with him, because that is not possible. It means walking according to God's instruction....allowing him to educate and mold us.
If you think for a moment where free will was exercised before the creation of man, you can understand that angels too have free will....or else satan could never have rebelled. The demons could never have joined him if they had no choice.
By allowing both humans and angels to exercise their free will, even to the detriment of faithful ones, we prove by our own response to wickedness, how we feel about what is good and what is evil. That is what the fruit in Eden represented. God's 'children' were not created to determine for themselves what was good and bad because basically, they aren't very good at it. The tree represented God's right to determine what was good and bad for all his intelligent creation. Look at the world and see that humans can turn good into bad and bad into good. If God is the sole arbiter, then problems are greatly reduced.
Free will was never tested in the spirit realm before the creation of humans, so it was a catalyst for angels as well as humans. The devil had no one of lower status who could see him as a god until humans came along. Sorting out these issues and testing all intelligent creatures out to see who can appreciate the gift, or who wants to abuse it to hold power over others, is what this time period is all about. At the end of it all, God has those who can follow his direction without complaint both in heaven and on earth. Precedents are then set for all eternity to come. Free will is preserved as the gift it was meant to be and if anyone in the future wants to push the envelope, they will be eliminated from existence because the trial has already concluded. Judgment will be swift.
If you are preventing him from harming others, because his ability to make rational decisions has been compromised, then the exercise of your free will trumps his.
In this world, no one is perfect. Any organisation of imperfect people is going to to be affected by fallen human nature and things are bound to go wrong because of it...God does the best with what he has. Its obviously not quite time for this exercise to finish, but we have hope that it won't be long. In the meantime we will just continue doing what we were told to do....preach the good news about God's kingdom. (Matthew 24:14)
Look at the history of ancient Israel....do you see any perfect people? Their imperfections did not prevent God from using them as his nation and he let them know in no uncertain terms when they had disobeyed his laws, what he thought of them. Conversely, he blessed the socks off them when they were obedient. So there we have the history of God's dealings with the only nation on earth that were bound by his laws. The Bible is a record of man's activities and it has examples of both good and bad so that we are not left in any doubt which is which.
All we can do is our best and God will remind us if we have overstepped his commands.
Compared with Christendom......I can't compare them as they are opposite ends of the scale.
I'd have to hear the story but again, if its a one off, you can't judge the entire brotherhood on the actions of a few.
We do our best to create good apples...but occasionally some don't 'ripen' as quickly as we would hope.
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With whom? If your teachers were teaching Hellfire and trinity (as most do), you weren’t learning the truth....no wonder you began thinking that ‘the Christian God’ did not exist!
John, I apologise in advance for the length of this, but there is so much to discuss....
If you studied the Bible with Christendom's version of Christianity in your mind, then I'm not surprised. All I saw in church was hypocrisy and picking and choosing what parts of Christ's teachings they would adopt and which ones they could ignore with impunity. I came to realise that most of their teachings were not from Jesus anyway. A corrupted church had adopted them from paganism, centuries before.
Most people I knew went to church out of a sense of duty, not because they had or wanted a relationship with God or Christ.
They picked their 'Christianity' up at the door and left it behind on their way out. That just felt so wrong.
I walked out on that religious system, but I never threw the baby out with the bathwater. I knew God was there...I just had to find him, but as it turned out, he found me.
I studied the bible by myself looking for God because I knew the version I had been force fed as a child was wrong. There is no evidence in there of a God. It's all stories of men.
You're flip flopping between there is and there isn't free will to fit your idea of God.
Survival instinct.
That's my point... unfortunately you have no evidence for this.
Free will within boundaries makes no sense.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
It's pretty clear from that verse that God was there with Adam and Eve. You are changing the meaning of something that is straight forward to show yourself the bible is without contradiction... it's not.
The story keeps changing. It amazes me how anyone can't see how "free will" is being used as an excuse to explain why God is absent.
I'd have to hear the story but again, if its a one off, you can't judge the entire brotherhood on the actions of a few.
We do our best to create good apples...but occasionally some don't 'ripen' as quickly as we would hope.
I don't judge all JW's by the actions of my neighbour across the street that would be unfair. I witnessed him stealing water from his community during a time of emergency when we were rationed to two 1 litre bottles a day per household (it was being brought in by boat), when I confronted him, his answer was to say his and his wife's need was more important than everyone else. The part that really gets under my skin is that his JW friends think he's a wonderful person, I fantasise about standing in his church and telling everyone what he did and why. There's a lot more to the story, I'll try to keep it short. Two of the families in my street had toddlers on formula and 2 litres was not nearly enough for them so the rest of us were giving them 1 of our bottles except our JW neighbours. As I said my house was hit by a tree, every neighbour offered us a place to stay except for them. The road into town was cut, we had no phones (mobile or landline), water or electricity, I couldn't call the SES or insurance company... found out later that my JW neighbour had access to a satellite phone through the fire brigade but didn't bother telling me even though he knew I was trying my hardest to contact them.
I studied by myself to avoid distractions
There is no point in going beyond this. If you think there's no God, and the Bible is the product of men, what is the point of any discussion? You just removed all grounds for the conversation to continue....
Have a good night.
Not what I said. I said there is no evidence of a God in the bible. Is there other evidence... that I don't know.
Prophesy. Have you ever checked it out?
Only in passing... anyway nice side step around our previous discussion.
It's hard to put effort and thought into a post only to have every point dismissed without much thought. Why would I want to continue that kind of discussion? I have nothing to offer someone who already has their mind made up.
So unless you actually want to learn something, why would you even ask?
Go in peace...not biting again. Bye....
Because it is a discussion forum not a lesson forum, the same reason you post in the evolution v creation section when your mind is made up on that.
And just for future reference I put a lot of thought into my replies, your points were not dismissed because of lack of effort but because I feel they were wrong.
That doesn't even sound right; those are exact words? What else is being omitted?
And how would you know this?
You should go to his KH....tell those brothers.
Yep, bet there is.
Thanks. I still don't see the connection.
Audie
Veteran Member
Speaking of those whose minds are made up!