Obviously that would be God in the wrong. Deliberately telling lies in order to lead anyone to damnation can only be considered evil, especially when, being omnipotent, you have the power to tell the truth.
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Understanding the holy scriptures is impossible unless God gives you the interpretation
- Thread starter 74x12
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Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
Well said, and I agree.
It appears to be going in one ear and out the other.
I believed in the biblical God for forty years, and I was a devout Christian for thirty of them, yet I never felt the "spirit of God" in times of trouble, sadness or happiness. When I felt elated in church, it was only because the preaching and singing had influenced my emotions, which were fleeting. My husband, who is still a devout Christian, has admitted that his emotions have also been manipulated when attending church services. He believes it is intentional.
Saying that is condescending is only your opinion. And if you don't accept it as fact, that doesn't mean that it isn't fact.
Claiming that "he's motivated by hope or fear and finds his beliefs comforting" is also just your opinion. I totally disagree."
"To me, studying scripture is a waste of time" is also just your opinion. Of course, since Scripture has been studied for thousands of years, that clearly shows that many people disagree with your statement.
We do agree on this, however: It's self-serving to call one's own beliefs truth and those who disagree fools. So, why do you do it?
Of course you are going to see some people as religious fools. That is obviously your predetermined classification, so it has no empirical value. There are fools in every area of life.
I find that sad. BTW, I don't attend church now, although I did once. I prefer to read the Bible and to communicate directly with God through prayer.
When I read the Bible, I try to keep my mind open to what it says. (I never look for "ammunition".) I am invariably blessed by what I read in a manner that I have never experienced reading anything else.
Unlike yourself, I feel the spirit of God constantly in my life.
I do not look to others to give me that feeling, including when attending church services. I consider much of that to be a theatric formula, and I don't relate to anything like that. My relationship to God is personal.
Agreed: Perhaps from time to time it's wise to listen to one's audience.
If you really want to know what the Spirit of God is, there is a simple solution: read the Bible! Then you won't make statements like "it seems to me that the "spirit of God" exists only as an idea not supported by examinable evidence".
Examinable evidence? How do I know that you actually exist, since I have never met you? I have no proof, so I accept the fact that you're a real person without examinable evidence.
Clearly you don't understand what "faith" is. Hebrews 11:1 might help you get started: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see." Being sure ... being convinced.
You have this message physically appearing on your screen. If you want to conclude I'm somehow AI, that too has objective existence, unlike God, who is, as far as I can tell, and at least to this point , as far as you can tell, only known to exist as a concept, notion, thing imagined in an individual brain.
What's so special about Paul that what he asserts without evidence is allowed to override common sense?
But anyone can have mere faith in anything ─ the unicorn, the yeti, Bigfoot, the Man in the Moon, Little Miss Muffett, fairies at the bottom of the garden, Superman, Donald Duck, four leaf clovers, prayers. When one has unsupported faith in something, it might be worthwhile to step back and work out why that particular faith view is appealing regardless of the lack of real evidence.
Or one might not want to risk the comfort obtained from the particular belief, of course. When ignorance is bliss etc.
Audie
Veteran Member
Its obvious to me as I'm not tone deaf.
Ajax
Active Member
What kind of communication is that? Are you asking for favors, praise/thank Him or both? Does God answer you back?
Aren't you ever skeptic for one verse? Do you agree with everything in the Bible? Even when he tells people to kill disobedient children and those working on Saturdays? Or that people can buy slaves who will be inherited by their children?
I really don’t have to ‘smooth anything out.’
Do you remember Isaiah 53, prophetic words about the Messiah?
In vs.10, in many translations, it says “the LORD (Yahweh / Jehovah) took delight in crushing him.”
Do you really think God “took delight” in seeing His Son mistreated?! In fact, the implication is that God ‘crushed’ him, Himself! How? In that God allowed (permitted) it to happen.
Same w/ Job (Job 2:3,”….although you incite me against him to swallow him up without cause.” It was Satan doing it.)
But back to Thessalonians… for these ones not to believe the truth, would mean that these ones first were taught the truth, to have the opportunity to accept or reject it. That was in the first century….
As I said, Christendom gave up truth centuries ago…. What Jesus & the Apostles taught, was forsaken after they died. The Apostles were the ones acting “as a restraint” (vs.7); soon after their deaths, the apostasy was in full bloom.
This should be obvious, when professed Christian leaders began supporting the world’s conflicts, encouraging their flocks to kill their brothers, in doing so disobeying Christ’s command to love their brothers. John 13:34; John 15:14.
That’s a big part of the
“lawlessness.”
Now there aren’t. In over 1900 years, species can go extinct, or be eradicated. It’s not unusual for highly venomous snakes to be a target for eradication in certain areas.
It seems at different times many try to say, “there’s no evidence for what the Bible states”, yet eventually, evidence is found the validates it…. Like with Governor Pilate’s existence, or Hezekiah’s water tunnel. The uncovered evidence vindicates the Scriptures. The naysayers have to come up with another objection.
Audie
Veteran Member
I used to have conversations with God. Prayer/conversations when I was more spiritually minded.
Usually I had visions or an understanding would pop into my head.
So for example per the title of this thread. If there was a particular passage in the Bible I couldn't make sense of, I'd ask God to clarify. Then wait for an answer. I'd always get one. Which seemed to me at the time to make perfect sense.
Or sometimes I would start walking in a random direction. Comes across a place selling books. Walk up to a book on the self the one I felt led towards and by it. Take it home and read it. It would have my answer.
This work all the timer without fail. Of course since the answers were not coming from me, at least consciously, they came from God. If you haven't experienced it you probably can't understand how convincing this can all be.
I came across a number of folks convinced they were communicating with God. All certain they had the true understanding of God. In fact I came to online forums originally thinking I was going to teach the "true" understanding of the scripture.
The only problem was that all these folks on the forums teaching the truth about God didn't seem to agree often.
So you go about the forums teaching the truth taught to you by God hoping someone will listen/be inspired to a better understanding. Those who didn't were simply blind to the Spirit.
Funny thing was though, I found the division between believers was even greater than the division between believer and non-believer.
So how can so many people, all in communication directly with God have so many different truths?
Perhaps it is easier for the believer to focus on the non-believer than other believers.
If you don't believe us, well we can just claim you are spiritually blind.
It seems to me that the Jewish view is correct, and there are no prophecies of Jesus in the Tanakh. On that basis it seems clear that the early Christian authors did a lot of retrofitting. An easy example is Isaiah 4:14, where the predicted child is born and has acted and ceased to be relevant by the end of Isaiah 8, and where the mother is not called a virgin but a young woman (though the relevant word is translated into the Greek for 'virgin' in the Septuagint).
It seems clear that Jesus knew from the start that he was on a suicide mission eg Mark 2:20, Mark 8:31 and the garden scene in all four gospels where Jesus says, Let's change that plan, and God says, No.
And as for the resurrection ...
Of course, they would think that. It’s condemnatory.
You agreeing with them doesn’t surprise me at all, my friend. Admit it, you’re not exactly objective. (I’m sure you think the same of me.)
But who else would / does it fit? I know of no other. Do you?
I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was the case, and my view is based to a fair extent on my own homework.
But much the same is true of you, and as it was in the beginning so the spiritual view and the material view can share jokes over a cup of coffee (with a fine brandy in it) as long, understanding each other, they leave the details of the debate to the waitress.
Soandso
ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᚢᚱᛖ
But there aren't any skeletal or fossil remains of venomous snakes on the island aside from native species and there are no written accounts of deadly vipers prior to the incident
A more reasonable explanation given is that there could have been a venomous Maltese snake which has since become extinct. However, there is no evidence – fossil, documented or otherwise – of a dangerous indigenous viper inhabiting Malta during historical times. And there is no evidence of an extinction event (such as the introduction of a predator or strongly competing species) that could wipe out an entire population of vipers, while leaving other species of snakes alive.
Which viper bit St Paul in Malta?
St Paul was bitten by a viper right in front of a group of awestruck natives on the island of Melita, who knew very well how venomous the particular snake was and so expected the victim to “swell up or fall down dead”. Since he remained unharmed they...
timesofmalta.com
After the fact there was a local legend that rose up that all the snakes lost their venom after Paul had cast the snake into the fire. Seems like a convenient explanation for why there are no deadly snakes on Malta
Doesn't seem like a very likely explanation to me when the more likely explanation was that he was just lying
What motivates you to believe in a god that well may not exist? What need does it meet for you? Why is it that you will do that and others find no need or reason to follow you? Is it for the hope of an afterlife and heaven? Is it because you fear extinction at death? Your belief is unjustified, and for you to hold it, it must meet some need, or you would walk away from it as I have.
Not just my opinion, but yes, it's an opinion. That's what "to me" signifies. It's also a fact in my case. I've done it in the past, in my Christian years, when I thought a god existed and had communicated with me. That would make the words valuable, and I studied them assiduously. Without that god belief, there is no point spending more time there.
Yes. Many still believe in gods.
What I said is that it's self-serving for a religion to teach that those who don't follow it and who look elsewhere for advice and wisdom are fools. They go further and threaten them with damnation and hellfire. It doesn't serve me at all to point out foolishness in the religious. Nor them.
Why do I do it? Wouldn't you comment on fools calling others fools? As I and others have told you, that offensive and condescending. I'm happy to point out the hypocrisy and the low character of those willing to believe that their family and neighbors who think differently than they do are fools, especially when they believe it on faith, a choice I also consider foolish. But I didn't write that out in a book and distribute it to billions of people over centuries.
Here's more of that beautiful poetry which one is so wise to study: "The fool says in his heart,'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good" - Psalm 14:1
Lookie there. We're not just fools. Without provocation, we're further maligned as corrupt and vile. Not one of us do any good. If you believe that, you're a fool and are simple. Imagine me writing that about Christians. You're all vile and corrupt, and not one of you does any good. That's hate speech, my friend. It's condescending, contemptible, and pure bigotry.
Yes, and you've already agreed that there are religious fools. The difference is that I limited my assessment to a subset of the religious, and I did so based on specific behaviors that I described: "atheophobic or homophobic bigots, or they come into threads to argue science with the scientifically literate." Those are fools to me. Do you disagree?
Predetermined? No. Those are judgments based in evaluating individual Christians, many on these threads.
How about addressing the examples I gave you of religious fools. Explain why they're not fools, but EVERY unbeliever is a corrupt, vile, useless fool. You invite this kind of rebuttal when you post offensive, condescending scripture about atheists to atheists.
What you're experiencing here is the rise of the nones, the people who are rejecting religion and who after centuries of being silenced, now have a platform and an air of respectability. Your Bible and church have managed to marginalize and demonize atheists in the past, but that's changing. It's going in the other direction. It's the believers that are increasingly being seen as the outliers - the homophobes and atheophobes, and those who would deny women freedom over their bodies.
And the believers simply weren't used to that or prepared for it. They'd never been spoken to in the past as I have written to you here. They're unprepared and are taken aback, taking comfort in the fact that it was predicted that they would be rejected, as if that required prescience to predict.
Whereas in the past, citing scripture as you did was safe and protected from scrutiny, rebuttal, and condemnation, but today, you pull that stuff out in a mixed, public forum like this one, and increasingly, you can expect blowback. And it's gaining momentum. The day may come when people keep their religious lives private and contained to enclaves of like-minded people the way they keep their sex lives and financial status private and share them only with a trusted few. Perhaps you'll modify your behavior a bit going forward.
Ajax
Active Member
Oh dear...there we go again...Honestly, everybody knows that Isaiah's 52:13–53:12 is about the Jewish people. But if you think it is for the Messiah, then it can not be Jesus because he didn't fulfill any of the 20+ requirements put up by the prophets, except from being Jewish..
God instigates all evil. Satan can do nothing without God's permission. That's what in the scriptures.
Again, according to scripture, it was God who sent them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
a) Hebrews 11:1, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see." So your statement "only known to exist as a concept, notion, thing imagined in an individual brain" contradicts what the Bible says. The Bible is right, you are wrong.
b) Since the author of Hebrews isn't known your statement about Paul is meaningless.
c) Reread a) above.
d) Reread a) above.
Simply because you lack faith doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. As the verse in Hebrews clearly states, "... being sure" and "... being convinced" settles the matter for me.
If you're seriously interested...
I communicate with God in the same manner that I communicate with everyone. Sometimes I make a request, sometimes I thank Him, often I praise Him and what He has done in my life. And yes, God answers me back.
You obviously ignore that the Bible is a historical document, written to cultures that existed thousands of years ago. If you understood those cultures better than you do now, you would have a better understanding of what God's Word really means. It is obvious that you and others spend a lot of time trying to criticize the Bible without understanding it.
I believe that the Bible is God's perfect message to humanity. I accept what it says 100%. If you take parts of it out of context (as many people do) you can twist it to mean anything that you want.
I recommend that you drop your critical attitude and try to understand what the Bible says and actually means.