ArchivedThe Truth and truthsI think I see where you 're coming from. One religion's beliefs may end up being correct, but since there's no way to really systematically prove it (i.e. faith must be involved somehow), then it will always at least come off as an opinion. I guess I can agree with that.... it's not a big enough issue to really debate in this thread anyway. Well, first, I would say.... don't take anything that the Catholic Church does as an accurate representation of Christianity. Catholicism and Christianity are not the same (though 99% of people think they are - I'll touch on that later in this thread). Second, I see your point. The thing is, though, that the Bible has not just been assumed to be fact. It has been studied and tested and, in the opinion (did I just say that?! ) of Christians, proven to be true. You may hold a different opinion, but that's why I asked if you've ever looked at the evidence in support of the Bible. You can't disprove it. Atheists can't disprove it. Yet you're not willing to trust it? You'd rather just go by your "internal feelings and emotions"? I guess the only thing I can say here is that the reason we Christians tend to be so persistent is that we believe that what you decide about Jesus will determine where you spend eternity. It's even bigger than a life-and-death decision. We believe it's the most important thing you'll ever hear, so we want to make sure you know about it and don't put off making your decision until it's too late. Again, our tactics may not be the best sometimes, but consider our message: We don't want you to end up in hell for eternity. Yes. There are some people who even claim to be Christians, and they don't know what Christianity teaches. And of the people who do not claim to be Christians, I would guess that if you asked most of them about some Christian doctrines, they would end up telling you things that are taught by the Catholic Church. This is evident by what you see in the media. Take "The Passion", for instance. Anytime you heard it referred to on TV, whether in personal interviews, or on "Entertainment Tonight", or anywhere, you heard Mel Gibson being described as a "Chrisitan" - not a "Catholic", but a "Christian" - and you heard his movie being described in terms of how it affected the Christian community. Mel Gibson is a self-proclaimed Catholic, not a Christian. And his movie was steeped in heavy Catholic doctrine, not Christian doctrine. But if you asked Joe down the street what religion Mel Gibson was, undoubtedly Joe would answer "Christian." So, yes, I do believe that there are many people out there in this day and age that do not understand what true Christianity teaches. Interesting. Thanks for the explanation! Is it your religion that is evolving, or your understanding of your religion? At least you admit it! I'm always amused by people who claim tolerance of all religions, but refuse to tolerate me when I speak out in favor of my religion. I believe whole-heartedly in your right to believe whatever you want. I also believe whole-heartedly in my right to tell you I think you're wrong. Or at least to tell you about the way that I think is right. You, in turn, have every right to not listen to me or to call me an idiot or whatever.
Hence the reasoning that we have to get out there and tell them...... they're not coming to us! Read my remarks to Scolai above. Tact is often not a strong suite for Christians, unfortunately. I agree there is a better way, and I for one will try to use it going forward. While Christianity is solely based in the Bible, that does not mean that there aren't any experiences that go along with it. So, yes, I guess my response is leaving out some details. I know that Jesus hears me solely because of what is stated in the Bible. The feelings that I have the coincide with my prayer times with Him are verification of the facts that are taught in the Bible. Not at all! I enjoy hearing "straight from the horse's mouth" what it is that you believe. It helps me to understand where you are coming from so that we can have a more productive conversation. I'm not sure that this is true. The Bible teaches that when I became saved, all of my sins were forgiven. At that point in time, I'm sure that I had committed some sins that I did not recognize as such at the time, but they were forgiven even though I didn't think they were sins. If you are a Christian who believes that sex outside of marriage is ok, then either you know the Bible condemns it, but you believe it's ok anyway, or you don't know the Bible condemns it. If you know the Bible condemns it, then it's time to question whether or not you're truly saved, because one of the evidences of salvation is wanting to do what the Bible says. If you don't know the Bible condemns it, then you will be held responsible for it, but not to the same degree that someone who has that knowledge will be held to. This will not keep you out of heaven because that was determined at the moment of your salvation, but it will cause you to miss out on some rewards in heaven that you might have gotten if you had read the Bible more thoroughly. He's not human. He's a holy God who cannot be anything but holy. If He stoops down to make a compromise with you, then He has ceased to be holy and ceased to be God. Here's the deal, though. God doesn't expect compromise from you. He expects obedience to His rules, just as He is always obedient to His rules. If you are obedient to God's rule of accepting Christ, then He will be odebient to His rule of forgiving the sins of all those that accept Christ and allowing them into heaven. If you are disobedient to His rule of accepting Christ, God will still be obedient to His rules, but the rule for all those who don't accept Christ is that they are not forgiven and they are sent to hell. I do like to call them "conditions" because that's what they are. If someone meets a certain criteria ("try to do the right thing and help people") then you will love them. That's a condition. With God, though, there are no conditions. ** Warning: another appeal to emotion coming up! ** God sent Jesus to die for the sins of all people, the ones who were trying to do the right thing and help others as well as the ones that were purposefully hurting others. He died for them all. The child rapist, abusive husband, politician , and you all have the same chance for forgiveness because God loves you all. Don't confuse a change in how God deals with people for a change in God's character. God has always been and will always be holy. Holiness is His primary attribute, the one from which everything else flows. You say God was vengeful and tempermental in the OT. I say He was every bit as longsuffering then as He is now. Consider an examples: God destroyed the world with a world-wide flood. You see this as judgmental. I look at the fact that from the time God told Noah to build the ark to the time the rains started coming down there was about 120 years. Presummably, many people would have seen Noah building his ark in that amount of time, and they probably asked him why he was doing it, and I'm sure Noah said he was building an ark so that he would be saved from the destruction God would bring as payment for the sins of the people, and that if they wanted, they could join him on his boat ride. God gave people 120 years to repent of their sin, but no one did. A non-loving God would have just started the rain right away and supernaturally saved whomever He wanted to. But our loving God gave people a long time to repent, and they did not, so their judgment was justified.
God's kindness and love must flow out of His holiness, though. God's holiness cannot be satisfied if he lets "good" people into heaven because those people still have some bad in them. God can only let perfect people into heaven. The only way one can be perfect is to have the perfection of Christ applied to their lives, and the only way that happens is by accepting Christ as Savior.
See above. God is requred by His laws to punish anyone who is not perfect as he is, because He cannot accept their imperfections in the presence of His absolute holiness. That's fine. Only the original texts were inspired anyway. The translations are just that - translations. The original texts are what you should appeal to anytime there's an issue with the Bible. Tell that to the thousands who were persecuted and killed in the first few centuries after Christ. The potential socio/political advantages that you see are more likely a result of Catholic teaching than Christian teaching, and I explained above, there is a difference. I actually did mean it to be funny! Forgot to put a little --> And I won't because it's not. Like I said, we Christians have got to find a better way to do the right thing. Until then, we'll probably just end up doing more harm than good. |
🌈Pride🌈 goeth before Destruction
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