Why Do You Remain A Christian?

[Adam5]

Stranger, the Bible is not a good book. I eventually got rid of mine, when my eyes were finally opened to the insane horror of the OT. Our house is a buybull free zone i ask myself WHY. Why did i believe this bull.. THAT is the miracle

[mcdaddy]

Here's problem número uno for you Stranger. Your launching point for all of your conclusions is that the bible is the "inspired word of (some) god". I don't know if you think it infallible, as honestly, (and I don't say this to be mean) but I can't read all of your posts, as they are drenched in the thick dogmatic prose of xianity that paints so much of reality with a perverted, superstitious brush and it churns my stomach. But instead of saying "the bible is true" and go from there, FIND OUT IF THE BIBLE IS TRUE. Im not goin to waste my time and do your homework for you. If you are too scared or lazy to find it on your own, that's your problem and I won't lose a wink of sleep over it. But if you do want truth, you will read ALL SIDES of the argument, and read exhaustively. The vast majority of us here came to reject xianity only after reading an amount of material (on both sides) that should reward us with doctorates in religion. We all read the apologetics as we desperately tried to cling on to our faith. But after all was said and done, we sadly accepted the fact that we had been deluded. Truth is often not what we would want. But truth is truth.

 

Allow yourself freedom of inquiry, and let go of the fear that some dictator will punish you eternally for using your brain an following the evidence to its ultimate conclusion. And let go of the myths and feel good stories of the ancients.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Adam and Eve did however know the difference between obeying and not obeying.

 

It doesn't matter whether or not they knew the difference between obeying and disobeying. If they did not have the knowledge to discern between good and evil, then they could not have known that disobeying is evil. The story has God punishing people for doing something that he himself programmed them to not have the ability to know was wrong. That makes GOD the evil one in this story. (Thankfully it's just a story; there's absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.)

 

Cits, forgive me if we have discussed this before, as I know me and Ouroborus did, but how do you view the Holy Spirit now? Did you too believe He was living inside of you at one time? If so, how has that changed? And do you ever feel anything of that presence any more?

 

As I've said many times, Christianity is mythology. It should be obvious from that that I don't believe the Holy Spirit is a real entity. I once thought that he resided in me; I thought I felt his presence and that he was guiding me. I now realize that it was all in my head. The placebo effect can be quite strong.

 

You are right with absalute certainty that infact, the najority believe in what they were raised to believe. However, you are an example of many many who decide later for themselvs in reguards to all religions. Just like most people, we make the decision for ourselves later in life. That is also why there are Christians worldwide, though that can be said of some other religions as well.

 

What God commanded was war and judgement on the nations, and the children were its victems. Understand, as you already know, children go to heaven when they die. Often times in life there are innocent who suffer for the evil decisions of others or even just neglect. It is a way of life in a fallen world Cits.

 

While I agree with waring sometimes being caused by different believes, such as the cursades, the bible certainly paints a different picture of those wars. Ofcourse though, as you know, I have not studies much in reguards to the secular versoin of these things.

 

Yes, there are exceptions, such as myself. And yes, there are people who get exposed to a different religion than what they were raised with and follow that other religion.

 

However, when considering how some leave one religion for another, don't forget the context here. We live in a time where there is relatively easy long distance travel and communication, and many people are exposed to more ideas than they were in the past. There are even missionaries infiltrating areas and spreading their worldviews. When God supposedly sent the Hebrews in to take over the "promised land," those Hebrews had never been to those lands, and therefore the peoples of those lands had not been exposed to the Hebrews' religious views. They just barged in and started killing off the people, including even little children and animals. That, my friend, is genocide.

 

By the way, nowhere in the Bible does it say that all children who die go to heaven.

 

Cits, when I say this, I do not mean any ill intent or questioning on your charactor or reasoning, but I was just wondering. When I have researched many topics, even outside of religion, there seems to always be different takes, and what seems to be countdradicting facts (sometimes in the same paper) and certainly more than enough reason to doubt it is true even when we know it was true. I think perhaps it is because we try to make a detailed timeline on what was not meant to be a history book but rather just books of guidence or points of history that should not be repeated or just the stories of one's life.

 

Point being, unlike the bible, which is believed to be written by over 40 authors and over a longer historic timeline than any other book in history (not to mention still the most desired book in the world) most books are of recent era and by one author yet have many prooven and verified mistakes that one cannnot begain to explain away (though I know many here do feel the same way in reguerds to the bible) is it possible that the bible would hold through a testing of deep water more so than almost any other book in history?

 

No. Now, of course there are plenty of flawed books out there. Practically anyone can write a book. Even those flawed books, though, are usually much, much more internally consistent than the Bible. Being internally consistent does not prove them to be true, but being internally inconsistent does prove the Bible to not be a reliable source of information.

 

If one was looking for reason to esteem it, could they in your view? Now I know you told me that was your goal to begin with and I believe you. What study other than the gospel comparison did you start to do, like perhaps outside of Christian apoligestics, that helped lead you to a disbelief in the bible? I know you have told me some of these things before my friend but just to feel that gap in my head again, I would love to hear one more time to as maybe tell the different conclusions between me and you.

 

Knowing what I know about the Bible makes it impossible to esteem it. Sure, there are good things in the Bible, but there are good things in the Koran, Book of Mormon, etc. Those books also have bad things and misinformation. Of course, I'm not as familiar with the others as I am with the Bible, so I can't speak on specifics as well with them.

 

I studied Christian apologetics for years. I acquired some apologetics books and listened to radio broadcasts like the Bible Answer Man. I was so convinced that Christianity was true that I invested myself in studying it in order to "always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks." The indoctrination was so strong that the Christian arguments kept me swayed for a number of years. However, once I started to see that the Bible really does have serious problems, as do many apologetics arguments, I can no longer be duped by apologists' erroneous arguments.

 

There was nothing outside of that that led to my disbelief. I did not read atheist books or websites or any sort of counter-apologetics until after I came to the realization that Christianity is a sham. Once I woke up to reality and was more open to alternate views, I did read some other things that further solidified my disbelief, but nothing outside studying the Bible was involved in my eyes being opened to the fact that Christianity is not true.

 

If you want to see a bigger picture of my reasons for not believing, you're welcome to read the long letter I wrote my parents about it last year. It's broken down into categories, including Contradictions, Fabricated Prophetic Fulfillments, Other Prophetic Problems, Absurdities, Cruelties & Injustices, etc. You should recognize some of the points, since some of them have come up in our discussions. However, there is much more there than we discussed.

 

If you want to read it, you can download it from post #13 here: http://www.ex-christ...istian-parents/

 

Gotta go. Take care....

[Adam5]

Citsonga / McD, great posts!

[mcdaddy]

It's amazing how lucid I can be at 5 in the morning. But it's all downhill from there. Lol

 

Thx tho!

[Guest Valk0010]

Not all of us here are amateur bible scholars and philosophers. I am surely not. I just simply have what I think are good reasons for disbelief in the christian religion. That said, if you could separate the emotional gratification you get from the gospels and Christianity, from what Christianity is. You would find a lot of interesting stuff real fast. Just be objective, and search for the truth unafraid of unwelcomed conclusions and you will figure it all out.

[mcdaddy]

Youre more knowledgeable than you give yourself credit for Valk. You know your shizzle.

 

You've been blessed by the holy ghost to see atheism as the most likely understanding of our cosmos.

 

PTL!

[MrsRoper]

Not all of us here are amateur bible scholars and philosophers. I am surely not. I just simply have what I think are good reasons for disbelief in the christian religion. That said, if you could separate the emotional gratification you get from the gospels and Christianity, from what Christianity is. You would find a lot of interesting stuff real fast. Just be objective, and search for the truth unafraid of unwelcomed conclusions and you will figure it all out.

 

You do yourself a disservice Valk when you say you're not a scholar and a philosopher, because you are. You are well read, and intelligent and a critical thinker. You have just as much knowledge, if not more, as everyone else here. And being a philosopher just means you ask the question, "Why?" Which you do.

[bornagainathiest]

Born again, I actually enjoyed reading your last thread. You can be, aahh, charming in your own crazy way.

 

It is true, some things are fact. I am going to die. fact. I wish I could eat. fact But even in these, some claim me not eating is all in my head, like, gee, no, I don't none of that pizza. Also some believe they will never die, based on new research or a teenager perspective. Some facts are facts whether we believe or not. This is true. BUT, where a subject has many variations and many conclusions based on facts, then one side should not be considerd fact or at least allow all to have their own opion on what they believe fact to be.

 

In relation to God, for instence, most Christians believe that creation alone is fact of His realality. Athiest ofcourse do not. Christians account testamonies worldwide that go beyond logic who have accepted Christ and who rely on Him to be face. Athiest do not. Sciencetist with different beliefs show factual testing of different results and from these come up with their own conclusion from a pile of facts. I believe when it rains, the sun sets and rises, small miracles in my daily life, guidence of mine by the Holy Spirit, everything working out in the times that God had planned and never in my timing or ways, the sounds of creation and the animals, the beauty of nature and the fragil thing we call life and in fact life its self as well as us humans knowing deep in our hearts right from wrong and have all over the world believed in a creator to me stems many facts of Gods existence, but to you, they are not facts, but nonsense or another explanatioin. The question is, what facts can every one agree on as to it being fact or not and secondly what conclusions do we decide to believe on all the debated facts?

Tell me, is it not, bornagain, up to us to decide what are facts and what are not?

 

No, Stranger!

 

No.

No, it isn't.

No, it isn't up to us.

No, it's never up to us.

No, a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y not.

No, it's not for us to decide that.

No, we can only choose to reject or deny a fact, but we cannot decide if it is a fact or not.

We don't have the power or ability to change a fact, if that fact has been independently proven. I'll give you an example.

 

I'm 53 years old. I can't decide to be 530 by believing that I am. Just believing that I'm 530 won't change my age from 53. It's stuck there and can't be moved, altered or changed by anything I want to believe. Nor can you, the Stranger, change my age by deciding it's 530 and 53. Nor can anyone else. Nobody can do so. It's beyond the power of any human to change their own age. It's also impossible for anyone to change another person's age. Sorry if that's tough for you to accept, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

 

Here's what can happen, though.

Since I can't change the fact of my age, what I can do is to change what I believe about my age. When I do this I don't change the fact that I'm 53 - that's unchangeable. Instead, what happens is that I'm changing my mind. I'm not changing reality one little bit. All I'm doing is changing what I think about myself. That's all. The only thing that changes is my thinking and my believing. All of this changing is done inside my head. Nothing has changed outside of my mind, in the real world. Once again, I'm sorry if this is tough for you to take, but I don't make the rules - I just follow them. As do you. As does everyone.

 

Stranger, most of the time you aren't deciding what is a fact and what isn't.

Most of the time you are just rejecting the facts you don't like or denying that they exist at all. That's why I called you a Denialist. A Denialist is someone who chooses to deny any fact they don't like or any fact they can't accept as real and true. Denialists don't decide what is a fact or what isn't, they just deny them and reject them. Here's that definition again...

 

"Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth."

 

 

 

Now, let's look at something you've written and I'll point out an interesting contradiction.

 

You wrote... "It is true, some things are fact. I am going to die. fact."

 

You also wrote... "Tell me, is it not, bornagain, up to us to decide what are facts and what are not?"

 

You write that it's a fact that you are going to die, but then you write that it's up to you to decide what a fact is. So, is it really up to you, the Stranger, to decide if your death is a fact or not?

 

The answer to that question is, of course, No. The Stranger doesn't get to decide if his death is a fact or not. That's not your decision to make. Your death stays a fact, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise. It's just the same as how old I am. Just as you don't get to decide if your death is a fact or not, I don't get to decide how old I am. Those decisions are out of our hands. Sorry, but that's the way it is!

 

All we can do about the facts of your death and my age is to change what we believe about these facts. That's all. You can choose to believe that your death isn't a fact. I can choose to believe that my age isn't a fact. But will our beliefs actually change these facts? Once again, the answer is No. Belief changes nothing about reality. Belief only changes things inside our heads. The catch is that because our beliefs don't change reality, what we are really doing is not changing the facts but denying them. We are not deciding what is a fact and what isn't, we are just denying certain facts. In your case, the unavoidable fact of your death. In my case, the unavoidable fact that I'm 53 and not 530.

 

The facts stay the same, no matter what we believe. You Stranger, can either accept that or deny it. The choice is yours. If you accept that the facts can't be changed by what we believe about them, then you are no longer denying reality, you are accepting it. I accept that the fact that I'm 53. If I decide that I'm 530, then I'm not making that into a fact. What I'm doing is denying my real, factually proven and authenticated age in favor of a false belief.

 

Finally, something for you to think over.

 

If the facts are whatever you believe them to be, how can you ever test your beliefs to see if they're true? The only person who can say what is true and what isn't is you, because you are the one who decides what the facts are. And if everyone gets to decide what the facts are for themselves, how can anyone ever agree on anything? If each of us decides what is true, then there are as many 'truths' as there are people.

That means over 9 billion truths and climbing!

 

(Hint!)

People who want to find out the truth choose to agree on what the facts are. It's like driving at the legal speed limit. Everyone who wants to drive somewhere safely sticks to the proper speed. All the safe drivers agree what the limit is and stick to it. That's what sticking to the facts means. It means accepting the facts as they are and not deciding to believe something else instead.

 

How do you drive Stranger? Do you choose to stick to the rules like everyone else? Or do you see the speed signs, decide that 50 is not a fact, so you won't stick to it?

 

Think about it!

 

BAA.

[Guest Valk0010]

Not all of us here are amateur bible scholars and philosophers. I am surely not. I just simply have what I think are good reasons for disbelief in the christian religion. That said, if you could separate the emotional gratification you get from the gospels and Christianity, from what Christianity is. You would find a lot of interesting stuff real fast. Just be objective, and search for the truth unafraid of unwelcomed conclusions and you will figure it all out.

 

You do yourself a disservice Valk when you say you're not a scholar and a philosopher, because you are. You are well read, and intelligent and a critical thinker. You have just as much knowledge, if not more, as everyone else here. And being a philosopher just means you ask the question, "Why?" Which you do.

I wasn't saying that for self pity, more that, it doesn't take a doctorate to get the point was all I am saying. But thanks for the self esteem boost.

[MrsRoper]

Not all of us here are amateur bible scholars and philosophers. I am surely not. I just simply have what I think are good reasons for disbelief in the christian religion. That said, if you could separate the emotional gratification you get from the gospels and Christianity, from what Christianity is. You would find a lot of interesting stuff real fast. Just be objective, and search for the truth unafraid of unwelcomed conclusions and you will figure it all out.

 

You do yourself a disservice Valk when you say you're not a scholar and a philosopher, because you are. You are well read, and intelligent and a critical thinker. You have just as much knowledge, if not more, as everyone else here. And being a philosopher just means you ask the question, "Why?" Which you do.

I wasn't saying that for self pity, more that, it doesn't take a doctorate to get the point was all I am saying. But thanks for the self esteem boost.

 

I know it wasn't a humble brag, but regardless, you know I think you are a smarty pants.

[mcdaddy]

Right, it isn't a necessity.

 

But it sure makes it a lot more dun clearer !!

 

A-huh a-huh!

 

*sticks finger in nose*

[centauri]

What God commanded was war and judgement on the nations, and the children were its victems. Understand, as you already know, children go to heaven when they die.

Please provide the chapter and verse from the Old Testament that confirms chlldren killed in wars of conquest go to heaven.

 

Keep in mind that according to standard Christian doctrine, all people are sinners via Adam.

You've created a scenario where God plays favorites and gives some people a pass while damning others for being sinners.

The Bible says that God does not show favoritism.

[Guest Valk0010]

Right, it isn't a necessity.

 

But it sure makes it a lot more dun clearer !!

 

A-huh a-huh!

 

*sticks finger in nose*

I agree wholeheartedly.

[MrsRoper]

What God commanded was war and judgement on the nations, and the children were its victems. Understand, as you already know, children go to heaven when they die.

Please provide the chapter and verse from the Old Testament that confirms chlldren killed in wars of conquest go to heaven.

 

Keep in mind that according to standard Christian doctrine, all people are sinners via Adam.

You've created a scenario where God plays favorites and gives some people a pass while damning others for being sinners.

The Bible says that God does not show favoritism.

 

Well, clearly God shows favoritism. First we have "the chosen people." And now he favors heterosexual republican evangelicals and hates everyone else. And I don't need no bible to tell me this - THE Fox news told me.

[centauri]

Poraohs heart was said to be hardened, but not until it was also said he himself hardened it.

The first mention of Pharaoh's heart being hardened states that God would cause it.

 

Exo 4:21

And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

 

Because I choose Jesus, as I know you already know, my sins have been forgiven giving me direct access to heaven and Father God. With His blood being needed and everyone went to heaven, would not heaven be just like earth?

The "Father God" of the Old Testament doesn't say anything about the blood of Jesus being needed to have sin forgiven.

 

Even because God knows what decisions we will make, again, He does not make those choices for us, thus it is on our own heads.

Predestination is clearly taught in the New Testament.

If you believe the New Testament then you're not in a position to know what or how many choices have been made by God ahead of time.

God does make choices for people, the question is one of degree.

[ConureDelSol]

You know, I WAS going to rage against Stranger's grammar and spelling until I realized he's using an old smartphone. Now I can't help but be impressed.

[mcdaddy]

I'm depressed today.

 

Meh.

[♦ ficino ♦]

If the sun was much closer to the earth, or the earths rotation would somehow slow down or go a little off track, or global warming was true, what would soon happen to the earth?

It's only half-right. Look up aphelium and perihelium. Earth is closer and farther away in a range of 10% (I think it is). Each year.

 

http://en.wikipedia....on_of_the_Earth

 

by chance nothing gets done. You can all vouch for that. If your wife left the dishes to do themself by chance you would run out of dishes and by the same logic you would be fired from your job. By chance, (though deformities happen) I do not see the things I would see if in fact life was chance or evelution. Half monkey men, half fish camels, half bird pigs. You get the point. If such a process billions of years then these facts would be more prevelent.

??? Half monkey men? First of all, it's ape-man, not monkey-man, and yes, they did exist. I've held skulls of several species. And it's clear that they were a breed between ape and man, very clear in fact.

 

Stranger, there are and have been such "monstrosities" as you speak of. the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles wrote of man-headed calves, and the Roman history Livy recorded accounts of a lamb with two heads and a pig with a human face (32.9). One presumes they would not reproduce or that their traits would not pass to any offspring they might have (probably the other animals would kill them).

 

You might say that your examples are different because you're imaging "half-and-half" species, not just deformed individuals. But when you imagine actual species, all species have to survive as complete organisms in an environment, so there are no species that are half one species and half another - there can only be species that are complete species at the time they are alive. Some of them may be very weird to us, but they are not half one species and half another. To talk of half-monkey men and half fish camels just shows that you do not understand the TOE.

 

BTW I mentioned ancient pagan accounts of monstruous births intentionally. In Livy's account, as is true generally when Livy reports events that people found eery and sinister, the monstruous births were interpreted as portents from the gods of evil to come. That's why they were recorded in the records that Livy presumably works from - priests would say, in this year a statue of Minerva wept, a man-headed calf was born, crops failed... you get the idea. I put this stuff in here to highlight how the bible and so-called pagan sources are much alike. If we dismiss some of the stories in the pagan accounts as legend, and the ideology behind them as superstitious, how will that dismissal not also pertain to biblical stories in a way that is not question-begging?

[the stranger]

Valk, thanks 4 responding. Check out Exodus 5:2; 7:13; 8:15, 19 and 32 ect. 4 seeing who hardened Pharaos heart from the get go, though it was forknown. I never seen the Godfather, but assume u mean God says Me and heaven or Satan and hell. True. God created us for Himself and heaven is a reward for obedience, hell was created for Satan and the disobedient. There is a place with no sin and all other places with sin. Through Jesus we can be sinless and it is impossible to have a third option. If we hate our Father heaven would b hell, so if we cannot b with the Father, our souls have to go to the only other place created. U r right. We have began to repeat ourselves. let me just address a point here that may have been missed than u say the last stance from there, and we will go to Jesus factual life on earth. As far is testing goes, alone we can pass no test. Picture this. You r failing a class and u know u can never ever pass it. You teacher says, just acknowledge me as the teacher and try to learn and do as I request and u will not only pass the test but all that is mine will b yous. How gracious. It is about attitude and not so much the grades. Now asume we could be created with free will and the inabilty to make bad decisions, would u truly b free? It would prevent us from even our basic responses to events around us. The biggest issue is as Christians we believe we were created for God and fellowship with Him. Imangine your cat or dog that you feed and shelter, pet and enjoy decides to rebell and bite you over and over again through the rest of his life because he became injured when enjoying freedom in the yard and went after a squirrel. He blamed you and never accepted u again. Could u keep him in your house despite his lack of understanding and ur love for him? I will respond to more post in a bit. take care my friend.

[Guest Valk0010]

I knew I wasn't crazy when I remeber it specifically saying god hardened pharoahs heart, btw thanks centauri.

 

From exodus chapter 4

 

²¹ The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. ²² Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, ²³ and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”

 

http://www.biblegate...s 4&version=NIV

 

So the referencing to the hardening of Pharaohs heart, are due to this one. And there is nothing saying, and I checked several different translations of things saying anything about Pharaoh doing it himself.

 

I will have to say this, because it seems that I have made my point very clear and you seem unwilling to understand because you cannot provide a credible defence against it. Or at least one that doesn't just agree with what I am saying but still at the same time denies what I am saying is correct.

 

There is a possibility for a third options (free will with no idea of evil or sin available to our actions). I have proven how while, not exactly pleasant, it is logically possible to have both. In a sense, having free will without evil, is a bit like adding limitations like not being able to fly or live under water. If we are created out it, we can still be free without those capacities. So your criticism about really being free is really irrelevant because we could say the same about not being able to fly or throw cars. We may want to, but can't do it, so does that violate free will? If that doesn't then, god could have just as easily added things like rape or murder to the list of things of the like of throwing cars with one hand or primates being able to fly. Though not even considering that, god could define reality to where there where no choices like murder. And if you want to stretch libertarian free will even farther to not include design of us inhibiting on action! You still have the problem of saying anything that could cause evil as being necessary. Want to rape? God could make have world only capable asexual forms of reproduction. Want to murder? God could make it so we can't die do to other people's actions. There are culture's that have no word for want, and god could set the world so as to everybody have the circumstances needed to come to that conclusion so there is no stealing. Omnipotence does a lot, even more then we could in theory conceive of.

 

The idea of having the ability to choose, doesn't require (though it could potentially if you consider different options in regards to omnipotence) having us dealing with evil feeling or wanting and being able to do bad things. How sin or evil or bad feelings comes about doesn't change having the ability to sin or not. One can for example think about or want to murder someone and not do it. It may be that, you would say, when they we would just worship like angels do. Well, if god wants us to do that, then he should do that. He is god, he does what he wants.

 

Heaven depending on your theology, is a place where everything is the same expect without sin and being in relationship with god. If that is the case, earth is unnecessary. The bone of contention is just simply having free will without evil not why did god create us the way he did. If free will without evil is possible, then it just simply means the free will defense fails. God could potentially(though I don't think this is true) just have a different reason for suffering being allowed on earth and us having free will in both places. But either free will needs evil or it doesn't. And if it needs it then its logically impossible to have free will in heaven.

 

If there is no free will in heaven and things like the hardening of pharoah's heart is considered then, now we can get into the why did he create us the way he did suitation, and the case is pretty clear cut, that god then doesn't really care about free will at all, he is seemingly making things more complicated for himself. If he can intervene on people's free will here(I would argue the very act of doing miracles on god's part is a violation of free will, as well), and if we have no free will in heaven, then there is no way he should have created us this way in the first place especially considering omnibenevolence. No perfect being should need anything and if he is imperfect there is no reason to believe he is god. He becomes no different the the devil or a sociopath.

 

Even if all that i am saying fails, the most moral thing for a omni benevolent god to do, if he had to create the world this way, would to not create us at all. Creating suffering cause your needy is usually considered selfish the last I checked.

 

And as an aside, lay off the preaching. Was raised christian, even insofar as attending a billy graham revival at the age of 9. I get the jist of what christians say okay.

 

I would be perfectly happy to move onto the life of jesus deal. I think I have said all I could say on the subject and unless you have something your itching to reply too in this, I am bored of this.

[the stranger]

mcdaddy, thanks for sharing. Truth is I didn't get into the bible until later in life. Except for some memorization of the bible as a kid, I knew relitively little of the word. It was later that Christ convinced through love for me to follow Him that I got into the bible. this was probably when I was 27-28. Some 14 years ago. When I had my doubts I also looked up orgins, but I came back satisfied that the scrutiny did hold up concerning Greek legends and many other things. I too have did a bit of reseach but the end result is we believe different results. luv all u guys, whether or not we ever c eye to eye. This has certainly been eye opening 4 me realizing those who left the faith were not only very biblically knowlable but had been Christians 4 Years and years in some cases. Thanks to all for sharing some of ur past with me.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Imangine your cat or dog that you feed and shelter, pet and enjoy decides to rebell and bite you over and over again through the rest of his life because he became injured when enjoying freedom in the yard and went after a squirrel. He blamed you and never accepted u again. Could u keep him in your house despite his lack of understanding and ur love for him?

 

This is a very unrealistic analogy, but in any case, the human in the analogy does not subject the animal to an eternity of torment in hell because of an event that the human both foresaw, could have stopped but did not, and possibly (if you're a Calvinist), predestined.

[mcdaddy]

AND the dog can SEE the owner and KNOW he's there, and not in some "I think he's there in my mind" kind of way that's completely subjective.

[Guest Valk0010]

AND the dog can SEE the owner and KNOW he's there, and not in some "I think he's there in my mind" kind of way that's completely subjective.

Preach my brother!!!