Mighty God

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coemgen said:
I didn't mean "enjoy sinning." I meant, we still sin. That's it. I was trying to insert some hummor. Forgive me if it didn't work. My ultimate point was that even though we're Christians, and we strive to not sin, we sin.

I understand. Now that I can agree with. It was the phrase "like to" that threw me. I'm glad we agree.
 
80sU2isBest said:


However, I do not believe that you are held spirtually responsible for your sin if you do not know what sin is/if you do not know what right and wrong are.

Can't the same be said for people who've never heard of Christ or anything you would consider the truth?
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Can't the same be said for people who've never heard of Christ or anything you would consider the truth?

I've never said that people who have never heard of Christ automatically go to hell. I don't believe that, never have believed it.

In the New Testament, Paul basically says that no one has an excuse because all people have been presented with the truth. At that point, I would imagine that people are judged according to how they respond to what they know of the truth.

I do believe that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus the Christ, because the Bible records Christ himself as having said that.
 
80sU2isBest said:


In the New Testament, Paul basically says that no one has an excuse because all people have been presented with the truth.

And I think that probably rang true for the audience to which he was speaking, but not for the entire planet.

80sU2isBest said:

At that point, I would imagine that people are judged according to how they respond to what they know of the truth.

I can agree with this.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


And I think that probably rang true for the audience to which he was speaking, but not for the entire planet.

I do not believe that every single person has heard of Jesus, that's for sure. However, I do think that everyone "of age" (the age being different for each individual) knows the distance between right and wrong unless the person is severely mentally handicapped or severely mentally ill.

*edited for typo only.
 
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80sU2isBest said:


I do not believe that every single person has heard of Jesus, that's for sure.

And what if you were born in another country of another religion, and you may have heard of Jesus, but it's not the whole truth of Jesus?

80sU2isBest said:


However, I do think that everyone "of age" (the age being different for each individual) knows the distance between wrong and wrong unless the person is severely mentally handicapped or severely mentally ill.

I agree to a certain point.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


And what if you were born in another country of another religion, and you may have heard of Jesus, but it's not the whole truth of Jesus?

If someone is taught something about the Gospel that is not the truth, and is never told the truth, I don't think that person will necessarily be held accountable for that. However, I also don't think it's an automatic excuse. If that person felt that their religion was wrong and felt convicted to seek the truth but didn't seek the truth, then he/she bears at least partial blame for not knowing the truth.
 
Coemgen, neither you nor bordergirl answered my questions posed on page 7 of this thread. Thank you for the detailed recitation on salvation. You would make a fine Sunday School teacher. (I did read all of your hard work there, you are well-schooled in your theology...but can I have a coupon for Outback instead, Applebee's food and atmosphere sucks.)
That said, I was being facetious when I asked about what it meant to be "saved." I'm well-versed in the various Christian religions. I have read all of the salient religious texts as well as having studied the history of religion, from pantheism to jainism to buddhism to animism. The difference between us, I think (not believe), is that I view religion from an neurological, physiological, psychological, anthropological, historical and philosophical/ontological perspective.
Everyone's throwing around loaded terms like "sin" and postulating about how to be saved from eternal death...you're only sharing stories in order to make living with the fact that you are going to die more palatable. If you need to believe in a theology (read myth) in order to treat your fellow beings well and avoid committing crimes--or to use your preferred vernacular: sins--knock yourself out. Just don't tread on me or other secular humanists or atheists or agnostics or freethinkers. (And don't worry about us committing crimes, most freethinkers have ethical/moral integrity.)
p.s.: have you noticed that the prison population is full of "believers" and nary an atheist.


Just a side note: Am I alone in thinking it's absurd to believe that Jesus was the first zombie?
 
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80sU2isBest said:


If someone is taught something about the Gospel that is not the truth, and is never told the truth, I don't think that person will necessarily be held accountable for that. However, I also don't think it's an automatic excuse. If that person felt that their religion was wrong and felt convicted to seek the truth but didn't seek the truth, then he/she bears at least partial blame for not knowing the truth.

In Catholic circles, there is a belief called "baptism by desire". It supposes a perfectly good person never heard of Jesus. Because this person was a perfectly moral person, he or she stands a good chance of achieving salvation. I believe this. I also believe it's presumptuous to assume you know who's going to be saved and who isn't. None of us know this stuff, only God does.
 
JCR -- I'm sorry I didn't respond to your post on page 7. I hadn't even noticed it. I shall get to it now. : ) First off, God and Allah are very different, if you're going to cite the two different texts. You're right there. It's funny that the Koran mentions Christ about three times more than it does Mohammed, yet they consider him just a minor prophet.
The God of the OT and NT are the same. Believe it or not, Christ spoke more about judgement than the God of the OT. Plus, much of the OT focuses on Christ, believe it or not.
As far as it being OK to mix faiths, this is totally untrue. With all due respect, your example of the Mormons is pretty poor. The Bible and book of Mormon contridict each other tremendously. Plus, there's no historical proof of the cities the book of Mormon speaks of. This is recognized by the Smithsonian and other organizations. So yeah, they mix the two. So what. They mix lies with truth.

And yes, I'll switch your prize from Applebee's to Outback. You're putting up some good discussion, so I'll upgrade. :yes:
 
JCR said:
Thank you for the detailed recitation on salvation. You would make a fine Sunday School teacher. . . That said, I was being facetious when I asked about what it meant to be "saved." . . .

Forgive me on not picking up on this. My detector was turned off.

JCR said:
Everyone's throwing around loaded terms like "sin" and postulating about how to be saved from eternal death...you're only sharing stories in order to make living with the fact that you are going to die more palatable. If you need to believe in a theology (read myth) in order to treat your fellow beings well and avoid committing crimes--or to use your preferred vernacular: sins--knock yourself out. Just don't tread on me or other secular humanists or atheists or agnostics or freethinkers. (And don't worry about us committing crimes, most freethinkers have ethical/moral integrity.)


Loaded terms? Stories?
I chose to believe in Christianity because it makes the most sense to me. Plus, there's enough proof, for me at least, to take it as truth. Here's the thing, it all centers around Christ . . . I know that's painfully obvious. :wave:
OK, then we know Christ existed. This is historical fact. No serious scholar is going to deny this.

Then the question becomes, is Jesus who he said he was.
C.S. Lewis put it this way:
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.”

So now we need proof that he's the Son of God, and not some nutjob. For me, I find this is in the more than 60 prophecies in the OT that point to Christ. Some of them were made 1,000 years before he came and many concern the crucifixion. These were made more than 500 years before crucifixion was a form of capital punishment.
Yeah, you could say that some of them Christ could've been well versed in, and then followed. However, there are some that weren't even up to him to fulfill. The best example is that his bones weren't broken during the crucifixion. This was a common practice to speed up the death. Yet, his legs weren't broken.See Psalm 34:20 and John 19:32-36. (Yes, I have a little book in front of me that explains this.)

It's been figured out that the probability for a human to fulfill 48 of the prophecies randomly would be 1 in 10 to the 157th. You're chances of winning a typical lottery are about 1 in 108 million.



JCR said:
Just a side note: Am I alone in thinking it's absurd to believe that Jesus was the first zombie?

No. You're not alone. I don't think he was the first zombie either. I don't think he was a zombie at all.:D
 
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coemgen said:
It's funny that the Koran mentions Christ about three times more than it does Mohammed, yet they consider him just a minor prophet.

No, they don't.

Jesus is their second most important prophet after Muhammad.
 
Forgive me anitram, I shouldn't have said minor. I just meant not the major one. :wink:

My point was, and I just found the stats, Jesus is mentioned 97 times. Muhammad 25. :hmm:
 
dazzlingamy said:


I'd like to state that this is your BELIEF, it is not fact and does not ring true to everyone, including me. I do not have a wish to know "God" (quotations as I don't believe there even is one) and I don't feel "it" calling me.


What I post are my beliefs about God.

I want to remind everyone to read the first post of this thread. It says:

"I want to start by saying that I understand there already exist numerous threads about God, individual beliefs, and truth. However, I feel that this thread will be much more longer than those, and much more detailed than those.

I just want to discuss God ... not so much politics, religion, or anything else.

Also, I hope that whoever chooses to take part in this discussion, will do so in a mature and caring manner. I understand how this topic can be very controversial, and how nearly everyone will in some way disagree in some form or another. Please be kind and considerate at all times."--posted by netminder0

Question>>>Why would persons who profess a disbelief in God be so engaged in a conversation about "Mighty God"?
No one here is knocking you. There is no argument. You are free to not believe, but have some consideration for those who do believe and wish to have a discussion.
 
coemgen said:
My point was, and I just found the stats, Jesus is mentioned 97 times. Muhammad 25. :hmm:
In my understanding, few sources agree on precisely how many times Jesus is mentioned in the Quran, as that depends on how one interprets various titles. And 25 is by far the highest figure I've seen for explicit references to Muhammad (i.e., by name). However, if one accepts the standard Muslim understanding that the Quran was dictated to Muhammad, it would be strange if he were mentioned by name--"I, Muhammad"--very often. On the other hand, various titles which crop up constantly in the Quran--"the prophet," "the messenger," "the bearer of news," "the warner," etc. are generally understood by Muslims to be references to Muhammad, whether spoken by the narrator (Muhammad), God (speaking through Gabriel), or other humans who appear in the text at various points.
 
JCR said:

religion has been trying to put a stake in the heart of truth since and even before Galileo. What do you think the Dark Ages were about? You, and bordergirl are assuming that the Bible is the word of one supreme being, when in fact it is the writings of men (and later revised and edited by monks) who claimed inspiration from "God"....
Now, I 'm not bashing you or bordergirl on your right to your own faiths, but stop speaking as if you have the cornerstone on capital 't' truth.

I think most of us here are speaking about our truths, not saying anyone has to agree though.

I see a lot of your questions have been addressed.

The one about Galileo hasn't:

It is commonly believed that the Catholic Church persecuted Galileo for abandoning the geocentric (earth-at-the-center) view of the solar system for the heliocentric (sun-at-the-center) view.

The Galileo case is thought to prove that the Church abhors science, refuses to abandon outdated teachings, etc.

The Church is not anti-scientific. It has supported scientific endeavors for centuries. During Galileo’s time, the Jesuits had a highly respected group of astronomers and scientists in Rome. In addition, many notable scientists received encouragement and funding from the Church. Many of the scientific advances during this period were made either by clerics or as a result of Church funding.

It is a good thing that the Church did not rush to embrace Galileo’s views, because it turned out that his ideas were not entirely correct. Galileo believed that the sun was not just the fixed center of the solar system but the fixed center of the universe. We now know that the sun is not the center of the universe and that it does move—it simply orbits the center of the galaxy rather than the earth.

Had the Catholic Church rushed to endorse Galileo’s views—and there were many in the Church who were quite favorable to them—the Church would have embraced what modern science has disproved.
 
verte76 said:

I also believe it's presumptuous to assume you know who's going to be saved and who isn't. None of us know this stuff, only God does.

I'm not presuming anyone is not going to be saved. I know that if the Gospel is truth (and I believe with all my heart and mind that it is), then I am saved, because I put my faith in Christ. I also know Jesus said "No one comes to the Father but by me". How he works that out for people who have never heard of him, I don't know. But he'll work it out.
 
I think maybe I should recap here a few things I said in the ill-fated (i.e., locked) atheism thread a few weeks back.

There is no such thing as a thread with a "-------s Keep Out" sign, whether concerning religion or anything else. Theists are free to post in an atheism thread, atheists are free to post in a thread about God, etc. Yes, this ups the potential for bickering, there's no two ways about that, but it could hardly be free discussion otherwise. However--a little humility from both sides is not too much to ask, and neither is refraining from dominating a discussion not primarily intended for people of your persuasion (whatever that may be). It can be difficult to spell out what this looks like though--one person's "Your beliefs are arrogant and self-centered" might be another person's "Those who don't believe what I do are going to hell." I guess all I can ask is that everyone try not to take disagreements about matters of (non)faith too personally, and take care to phrase both their statements of opinion and their replies to others in that spirit. And of course, avoid persistently hounding other posters if you know you're coming from outside the thread's generally intended target audience.

I think part of the problem with this thread (above and beyond the usual) is that the original post simply invited a discussion "about God"--it did not specifically seek "a discussion with my fellow Christians about God," though based on subsequent posts, that does in fact seem to have been the general intent. (Compare this to amy's atheism thread, which was explicitly titled "What about us atheists" and specifically invited other atheists to weigh in with their views in its initial post.) In general, I think it makes threads concerning religion/atheism both more productive, and certainly easier to moderate consistently, if a reasonably clear scope of discussion is defined from the outset.
 
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I think that it's great if believers want to rain on unbelievers parade - dissent and criticism are fine things but I expect the same right in return. Tolerance is not about respect for views, it is about respect for rights.
 
Going with Yolland's point, I also am interested in people's thoughts on their own personal beliefs, but even in a thread about God, I do think it is best if you don't assume that everyone shares your religious views, and therefore when making sweeping statments like 'we all sin' and 'we all desire to know God' will be picked up on because they are simply not belived by everyone.
 
Interesting thread. . .

A few random thoughts and a question:

I also believe that there is no seperate "soul" that lives on consciously after death. I can't remember who it was, but early in the thread another Christian summed up my beliefs on that pretty well.

I don't believe God has as much of an "issue" with atheists as He does with Christians who misrepresent Him. After all, most of the atheists I've met (including those I know well, such as my brother, and also those I don't know personally, such as my fellow posters here) are honestly unconvinced that there is sufficient evidence for the existance of God. If they don't see it, they don't see it, and I don't think you can fault that. Furthermore, the kind of God that most people who abandon faith once believed in is one horrific diety and certainly unworthy of any kind of worship or respect.

I'd be really interested in hearing the "conversion story" of someone who was once a believer who gave up their faith but who, up until the moment they lost their faith, thought of God as wonderful, loving, and close, and yet somehow lost faith anyway. So far it would seem that the God most people stop believing in isn't worth believing in anyway.

I can understand the humbrage taken by those who do not believe in God when Christians talk about what all those who do not "know God" are missing, but doesn't this "derision" cut both ways. Doesn't the atheist shake his/her head at the benighted, irrational belief systems of faith? Wouldn't the atheist argue that the believer is "missing" so much by holding on to primitive beliefs that don't stand up to the rigors of science, and being held to all kinds of "outmoded" beliefs because "God says so."

Which brings me to my question:

For those of you that are so offended by how the Christians on this thread defend their faith, would you care to describe what would be an appropriate way for us to talk about what we believe?

I'm not saying that there hasn't been the occasional arrogance, and self-righteousness among the Christian apologists on this thread, but then we all tend to cop that attitude from time to time (with a few notable exceptions). Hell, we all think we're right most of the time. But on the whole, I think that they've done a good job of keeping it civil and respectful.
 
dazzlingamy said:
Going with Yolland's point, I also am interested in people's thoughts on their own personal beliefs, but even in a thread about God, I do think it is best if you don't assume that everyone shares your religious views, and therefore when making sweeping statments like 'we all sin' and 'we all desire to know God' will be picked up on because they are simply not belived by everyone.

But see, that's just it. A_Wanderer makes sweeping statements all the time about our basic materialist nature which I strongly disagree with yet, yet he's not faulted. (And I'm not saying he should be). Should he also "not assume that everyone shares his materialist views" or does the fact that he has science on his side exclude him from having to qualify his every statement with "this is what I believe to be true, but I know not everyone feels this way."

I think it's kind of self-evident that when a Christian makes a statement like "we all sin", that this is just what they believe and not everyone shares that belief, just as when A_W says "we're all animals", it's obvious that not everyone agrees with that assumption.
 
dazzlingamy said:
and therefore when making sweeping statments like 'we all sin'
For the life of me, I can't figure out why this is a big deal. Is there anyone in this forum who honestly believes that they don't sometimes do the wrong thing? I would think that only people who don't believe that there is no right or wrong would believe this, but I would assume that isn't the view of most people on the forum.
 
A_Wanderer said:
I think that it's great if believers want to rain on unbelievers parade - dissent and criticism are fine things but I expect the same right in return. Tolerance is not about respect for views, it is about respect for rights.

And where do you not see that on Free Your Mind? Honestly, where are your rights as a nonChristian being taken away?
 
maycocksean said:


But see, that's just it. A_Wanderer makes sweeping statements all the time about our basic materialist nature which I strongly disagree with yet, yet he's not faulted. (And I'm not saying he should be). Should he also "not assume that everyone shares his materialist views" or does the fact that he has science on his side exclude him from having to qualify his every statement with "this is what I believe to be true, but I know not everyone feels this way."

I think it's kind of self-evident that when a Christian makes a statement like "we all sin", that this is just what they believe and not everyone shares that belief, just as when A_W says "we're all animals", it's obvious that not everyone agrees with that assumption.

You are 100% correct.
 
80sU2isBest said:


And where do you not see that on Free Your Mind? Honestly, where are your rights as a nonChristian being taken away?
They are not, perhaps you miscontrue intent since I am not making claim to victimhood - I am more than capable of defending my position and I revel in doing so.
 
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The reason I wasn't addressing A_W aterialist views, is because I haven't read them in this thread. And I don't think its up to me to accern whether someone who says 'we all want to know God' is only speaking as their BELIEF or whether it is a sweeping statement. Maybe putting 'my beliefs dictate' or 'i feel' makes it clearer perhaps?

I do the wrong things all the time, but i dont think they are "sins" or that I'm doing them beause some divine being made me not perfect so i can be humble or something. So when you call it 'sins' i feel like you are taking MY mistakes out of my hands and putting them into the 'this is how you're made, jesus died for your sins yada yada' and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
 
maycocksean said:


I think it's kind of self-evident that when a Christian makes a statement like "we all sin", that this is just what they believe and not everyone shares that belief, just as when A_W says "we're all animals", it's obvious that not everyone agrees with that assumption.

You have captured my frustration---thanks.
Also,
Conversation/observations/ about a "Mighty God" (unless this was supposed to be taken sarcastically) was what the original post asked.
Believers of all faiths will be inclined to post/share/teach/inspire, etc.
But if this post becomes about defending aetheism (a belief in no God), then carry on.
Believers, Aetheists or Agnostics respectfully exploring questions regarding Faith or lack of it, God, Jesus, etc. and others respectfully responding?
ok then!
Questions are opportunities for all of us to learn.
 
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