Christianity

[attofishpi]

u have no idea about the actual entity that is GOD.

[promethean75]

Four words, pal.

ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata

[Immanuel Can]

U IDIOT..

It was not I who made the error, and not I who cannot deal with the very simple answer. So I will let the comment speak for itself.

But U contorted again to not include this:-

You will find that repetition will prove futile. I am not engaging it. It's simply too foolish.

[attofishpi]

U IDIOT.. GOD JUST TOLD ME NOT TO BOTHER WITH U.

ps. Christ is a MAN, he actually dislikes arse kissing sycophants like you..you will be wiped clean of thought and reborn.

MEN like us like MEN. (not arse kissers surrounding us, Christ included is sick of twats like U)

..such is a Knights Watch of Time


YEP I AM JUST A FOOL...

and according to you:- ..AND GOD LOVES US SO MUCH HE CREATED HELL TO BURN PEOPLE FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY..



BUY_BULL does not require questioning regarding GOD's LOVE...according to dumb USA sycophant weird cunts actually.

[Immanuel Can]

YEP I AM JUST A FOOL...

If you say so.

I merely said your present words were foolish. And that's evident.

However, if you wish, you may expand that to whatever dimensions you deem appropriate.

[Pattern-chaser]

When is SUM 1 gonna start getting down to being a BIT more objective about GOD?

The sad truth is that "being objective" about anything/everything is impossible.

[N.B. I assume that, by "objective", you don't just mean as-impartial-as-we-could-manage, but something rather more rigorous.]

[Harbal]

But the second, even you can't doubt...that is, that knowing God should change one's life. For better or worse, it makes all the difference to how one continues, including what one's goals and motives are, what gives one joy or concern, how one uses one's resources and time, how one invests oneself in relationships, how one speaks, where one goes, what one does...

Those are high stakes, even if we consider merely this present life. Being a Christian takes everything one has. And if one doesn't see that sort of level of personal commitment in some who profess to be Christians, then on authorization of Jesus Christ Himself, you have permission to doubt their sincerity and the truth of their claim.

But I can doubt that, and very much so. I am a human being, living on Earth, the only relationships I can be involved in are with other human beings, and if I did believe in God, I would believe that all the more. Why would God create us, and then demand we be preoccupied with him more than with each other? Why would he want us to have our minds on the place where he intends us to eventually go, rather than the place we are here and now? People say that God gives meaning to our lives, but I see it as being totally the reverse. For God to create this planet, then create us to live on it, just so we can believe in him and worship him for three score and ten years before we are sorted into those deserving of a better place and those not, would be utterly, utterly pointless. Where is the meaning in that? If I believed what the Bible asked me to believe, I would also have to believe that we were being toyed with. No, if human beings do have any duty at all, it is towards each other and the planet we live on. That would surely be God's intention.

To me, the word faith implies confidence in something being true, along with a desire for it to be true, and in fact counting on it to be true. I have no desire for the God of the Bible to be true, and the less confidence I have in it being true, the better, and I'm certainly not going to cultivate faith in it being true. I don't mind there being a God, but please don't give me that one.

Jesus Christ Himself said, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." What you're experiencing is exactly what he said would be the case.

I think you might have told me what being born again means, but I'm afraid I've forgotten.

Well, may I make a suggestion? Chase that. Track down for yourself why that is.

Ask yourself why it "gives you an uncomfortable feeling." There is something there, something behind that unease...is it the same kind of unease you feel in other circumstances? Or does this very topic give you a special kind of apprehensiveness you're not accustomed to experiencing in other contexts? Or is this "uncomfortableness" you experience qualitatively different?

It makes me uncomfortable because it seems perverse. If we are disposed to invest love or faith in anything, it should be in other people.

[Immanuel Can]

But the second, even you can't doubt...that is, that knowing God should change one's life. For better or worse, it makes all the difference to how one continues, including what one's goals and motives are, what gives one joy or concern, how one uses one's resources and time, how one invests oneself in relationships, how one speaks, where one goes, what one does...

Those are high stakes, even if we consider merely this present life. Being a Christian takes everything one has. And if one doesn't see that sort of level of personal commitment in some who profess to be Christians, then on authorization of Jesus Christ Himself, you have permission to doubt their sincerity and the truth of their claim.

But I can doubt that, and very much so.

Yes, of course you can. People can doubt anything.

Why would God create us, and then demand we be preoccupied with him more than with each other?

He requires us to be involved with both. Take a look a the 10 Commandments, say, or the two Great Commandments by which Christ summarized the whole law, and you'll see both. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbour as yourself." The primacy is indeed on love for God; but there is immedate application, in every case, to loving one's neighbour as well.

And that makes perfect sense, if, as I say, loving God reorders one's priorities and makes possible true love for the neighbour.

Why would he want us to have our minds on the place where he intends us to eventually go, rather than the place we are here and now?

Well, He speaks plenty about both.

But the short answer is that this world, as you cannot not know, is flawed, fallen and marked by sickness, sadness and death. And God does not intend to allow that to persist forever. But His Kingdom lasts forever. And forever is a very, very long time.

People say that God gives meaning to our lives, but I see it as being totally the reverse. For God to create this planet, then create us to live on it, just so we can believe in him and worship him for three score and ten years before we are sorted into those deserving of a better place and those not, would be utterly, utterly pointless. Where is the meaning in that?

In the way you've summarized it? Well, if that were how it is, then plausibly there might be none. But you've got the case reversed, actually: it's eternity that matters ultimately, and worldly life that is temporary. "The point" as you put it, is eternal. The present "point" is to choose our desired position relative to God, and the future point to live in positive relationship to God forever.

That makes both now and later immmensely important. But it makes the second the determinant of the ultimate meaning of the first.

If I believed what the Bible asked me to believe, I would also have to believe that we were being toyed with.

Such a suggestion is absent from the Biblical account of God. He does not "toy" with anybody. The business in hand is absolutely serious, and has to do with our freedom to decide what we want eternity to look like for us.

No, if human beings do have any duty at all, it is towards each other and the planet we live on.

Then they have none. For absent God, there is no reason we owe any "duty" to our neighbour, far less to "the planet," since both are (presumably) chance fixtures in a universe that came into being by chance. We can't owe mere chance, mere accidents, anything.

To me, the word faith implies confidence in something being true, along with a desire for it to be true, and in fact counting on it to be true.

That's actually a pretty good definition, provided that we add in that the "confidence" in question is premised on facts and evidence, rather than what some people imagine -- mere wishful thinking.

I have no desire for the God of the Bible to be true, and the less confidence I have in it being true, the better, and I'm certainly not going to cultivate faith in it being true. I don't mind there being a God, but please don't give me that one.

Well, if you said, "I don't mind there being an IC, but please don't give me that one," perhaps you'd have a point. But like any real person, God is not up for our wishful thinking. He is who He is. And we have to take Him as He is, on the terms He defines, not as we wish to remake him in our imaginations.

Jesus Christ Himself said, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." What you're experiencing is exactly what he said would be the case.

I think you might have told me what being born again means, but I'm afraid I've forgotten.

It means a change of nature. It means that, having believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself engages to renovate to into a creature more suited for companionship with Him. And be you ever so low (I have one friend who used to be a drug runner and biker, for example), God Himself undertakes to remake you into a person who is more like His Son (as I can tell you, he has with the biker).

Well, may I make a suggestion? Chase that. Track down for yourself why that is.

Ask yourself why it "gives you an uncomfortable feeling." There is something there, something behind that unease...is it the same kind of unease you feel in other circumstances? Or does this very topic give you a special kind of apprehensiveness you're not accustomed to experiencing in other contexts? Or is this "uncomfortableness" you experience qualitatively different?

It makes me uncomfortable because it seems perverse. If we are disposed to invest love or faith in anything, it should be in other people.

And is that all?

[seeds]

Let's imagine God appears, and in such a way that no more doubt is possible...for anybody. What happens next?

Almost the entire population of humans act morally since they are concerned of the consequences...and possible reward(s).

Too late.

As the Bible says, "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." (Rm. 3:23) All have sinned...already.

Sometimes I just cannot sit back and remain silent when you use that particular Biblical quote to support your argument.

In which case, I must (once again) ask you to explain how these two children...



...at this particular point of their lives, have "already sinned" and fall short of the glory of God?

Again, at this particular point of their lives, What is their sin?
_______

[Immanuel Can]

Let's imagine God appears, and in such a way that no more doubt is possible...for anybody. What happens next?

Almost the entire population of humans act morally since they are concerned of the consequences...and possible reward(s).

Too late.

As the Bible says, "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." (Rm. 3:23) All have sinned...already.

Sometimes I just cannot sit back and remain silent when you use that particular Biblical quote to support your argument.

In which case, I must (once again) ask you to explain how these two children...

Yes, yes...very cute. One is tempted to be emotionally misdirected, for sure.

But don't let the cuteness of the picture fool you. As anybody knows who has ever had a child, as cute as they are, they know how to rage, hit, steal, deceive, and as soon as they can speak, lie as well...it's rudimentary in them, but they seem to come out of the womb knowing exactly how to make it all work. And it's not very long until they start making it work in practice, as every parent also knows.

But it's wrong to think that "all have sinned" means "all have sinned equally." That is not ever said in Scripture: in fact, the opposite is maintained. Condemnation comes in degrees. There are sins of children and sins of adults; there are sins of temptation and sins of malevolence. There are sins of inattention and sins of plotting. And they do not weigh equally in the scales of justice.

So you can leave with God what sort of culpability falls to each person. It is His to know, and He never gets it wrong. Worry instead about what we ourselves know we have done, and let's leave off trying to exonerate ourselves by accusing God of being unable to judge others. We have enough of our own to answer for.

[Pattern-chaser]

Again, at this particular point of their lives, What is their sin?

I was brought up by cultists — Roman Catholics — to believe that even the youngest children are born with the stain of Original Sin on their souls. I do not accept this — that we all bear the guilt of a sin (supposedly) committed by our far-distant ancestors — but it is an answer to your question...?

[Immanuel Can]

Again, at this particular point of their lives, What is their sin?

I was brought up by cultists — Roman Catholics — to believe that even the youngest children are born with the stain of Original Sin on their souls. I do not accept this — that we all bear the guilt of a sin (supposedly) committed by our far-distant ancestors — but it is an answer to your question...?

You're putting two different things together, PC...that is, sin nature, on the one hand, and particular sins, on the other. Maybe the Catholic catechism didn't make that clear to you, I don't know.

A person who has never stolen is not guilty of the particular sin of theft. But he still has the nature of one who is capable and maybe even inclined to steal. Both are a problem. Because it's bad enough if the Righteous Judge of all things were to play fast-and-loose with particular sins, but even worse if He were to make into eternal beings mere creatures instinctively inclined to wickedness.

Both the nature and the particularity of sin have to be dealt with. But nobody is accusing you, or anybody else, of being guilty of (say) your great grandfather's misdeeds. Those are on him. You and I have enough to deal with, with our own particular sins, and with the nature in us that made it possible for us to want to do such things, and to be able to do them, in the first place.

[seeds]

Again, at this particular point of their lives, What is their sin?

I was brought up by cultists — Roman Catholics — to believe that even the youngest children are born with the stain of Original Sin on their souls. I do not accept this — that we all bear the guilt of a sin (supposedly) committed by our far-distant ancestors — but it is an answer to your question...?

I am well aware of the fact that the concept of "Original Sin" is the answer to my question.

However, my question was directed to Mr. Can who, last year (in another thread), insisted that the concept of "Original Sin" (as per the Adam and Eve debacle) was not only ridiculous, but "hogwash." (indeed, he's even offering the same argument to you).

In which case, I find it interesting that someone who thinks of himself as being a devout believer in the tenets of Christianity, nevertheless, denies the very premise upon which Christianity is founded.
_______

[Immanuel Can]

Mr. Can who, last year (in another thread), insisted that the concept of "Original Sin" (as per the Adam and Eve debacle) was not only ridiculous, but "hogwash."

If I called it "hogwash," then no doubt it was your interpretation that was the "hogwash," not the idea of "original sin." I surmise you must have misunderstood the concept, and misrepresented it badly.

But you can indicate the context, and we'll find out.

Go ahead.

[promethean75]

Mr. Can denied the doctrine of original sin?

What unspeakable sacrilegious audacity is this.