Lost my faith, might find it again...but might not

March 15, 2007

another thing. this article was written long before Jesus Christ came to earth. God is living. there are time pre-Jesus and after-Jesus. and ALL of us belong to after-Jesus time, not pre-Jesus time, I mean you, me, mordern people...

You tread dangerous ground here.

The Torah, or the first five books of the Old Testament are a contract between God and the people of Israel. It is referred to as an "Everlasting Covenant" between them. Read Deuteronomy 28 and 29 for the terms of the contract.

There is also to be no further adjustments to the Law, as the Law in continual. Deuteronomy 4:2 states, "Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to 3 you."

Deuteronomy

30:11 “This commandment I am giving 19 you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it too remote. 30:12 It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 30:13 And it is not across the sea, as though one must say, “Who will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 30:14 For the thing is very near you – it is in your mouth and in your mind 20 so that you can do it.

30:15 “Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. 30:16 What 21 I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. 22 30:17 However, if you 23 turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, 30:18 I declare to you this very day that you will certainly 24 perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. 25 30:19 Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! 30:20 I also call on you 26 to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually 27 in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The Israelites were given the whole thing, totally complete. It is everlasting, not provisional until Jesus comes, or until man walks on the Moon--it is forever.

God does speak of a New Covenant in Jeremiah.

31:31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, 66 “when I will make a new covenant 67 with the people of Israel and Judah. 68 31:32 It will not be like the old 69 covenant that I made with their ancestors 70 when I delivered them 71 from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” 72 says the Lord. 73 31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel 74 after I plant them back in the land,” 75 says the Lord. 76 “I will 77 put my law within them 78 and write it on their hearts and minds. 79 I will be their God and they will be my people. 80

31:34 “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. 81 For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” 82 says the Lord. “For 83 I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

What that means is that all the people will have the Law within them and follow it without question, and He will forgive all of the sins that the Israelites committed in the past. Notice to that God here is forgiving people without sacrifice or blood atonement.

For the New Covenant to replace or supplant the old would mean that God knew He would abandon it when He gave it to them. and also that he knew that they would never be able to fulfill it.

March 15, 2007

who said you must be miserable and follow the Commandments? NO

I didn't say that you said that, I was just stating a fact.

March 15, 2007

Jesus knew this man before they talked each other. Jesus knew this man was a rich man, and knew the man love money which is a factor to hinder him to have eternal life. So Jesus tested him to see if he choose the money or kingdom. Here we come around again:D , free will.

I read the whole chapter and find nothing that says Jesus knew the guy beforehand.

Jesus said many things, shouldn't we look all of them as a whole message?
Matthew 7:21: "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.
Mark 4:17 Other people are like the seeds that fall on rocky ground. As soon as they hear the message, they receive it gladly.
4:17 But it does not sink deep into them, and they don't last long. So when trouble or persecution comes because of the message, they give up at once.
4:18 Other people are like the seeds sown among the thorn bushes. These are the ones who hear the message,
4:19 but the worries about this life, the love for riches, and all other kinds of desires crowd in and choke the message, and they don't bear fruit.
4:20 But other people are like seeds sown in good soil. They hear the message, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred."
John 3:3 Jesus answered, "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again."
3:5 "I am telling you the truth," replied Jesus, "that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
3:6 A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit.
3:16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.
3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.
3:18 Those who believe in the Son are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged, because they have not believed in God's only Son.
3:19 This is how the judgment works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil.
3:20 Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up.
3:21 But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God
Nor does the Father himself judge anyone. He has given his Son the full right to judge,
5:23 so that all will honor the Son in the same way as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
5:24 "I am telling you the truth: those who hear my words and believe in him who sent me have eternal life. They will not be judged, but have already passed from death to life.
5:25 I am telling you the truth: the time is coming-the time has already come-when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will come to life.
5:26 Just as the Father is himself the source of life, in the same way he has made his Son to be the source of life.

Ok, but in "looking at them as a whole message you sure jumped around a lot, huh?

It is clear, too that in addition to being born-again (maybe), you have to give away all of your possessions:

"...none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up everything he has" (Luke 14:33);
"If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor and you will have riches in heaven" (Matt. 19:21);
"Sell your possessions and give alms" (Luke 12:33);
"But give what is in your cups and plates to the poor, and everything will be clean for you" (Luke 11:41);
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,.... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.... for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:19-21);
"How hardly shall they that have riches enter to the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:23);
"Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt. 19:23-24);
A certain ruler told Jesus that he had obeyed all the commandments from his youth up. But, Jesus said, "Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me" (Luke 18:22, Mark 10:21),
Paul said, "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ" (Phil. 3:8 RSV)

So, you can't have anything of any value and be a true follower of Jesus.

March 15, 2007

Incorrect. One of the qualities that adults have that children do not is knowing right from wrong. That is why we have to teach children such things. The text is clear that they did not know right from wrong (good from evil) before eating the fruit, since the fruit imparted that ability to them. Adam and Eve had adult bodies but the brains of a young child.

Ok, I'll try to explain it yet again: If God knew in advance, it is no test at all. There's no "let's see what happens" it's "watch this" because He knows what happens. He knew He would create Adam, He knew Adam would fail, and He knew He would punish Him (and all of us, too.)

What that amounts to is, "I am going to create something that I can punish."

Man falls for temptation, which God knew full well He would do. How can a being who is perfect and all-good and all-loving create another being and set it up specifically to fail? What possible point could there be to that? For God to do this to men it is like mean middle school kids picking on the retarded kid.

How can a sinless being commit sin? Isn't temptation coveting, which is a sin itself? If Adam can be tempted, he covets, and if he coveted, he was not sinless.

Here again, God punishes the innocent along with the guilty, as animals didn't do anything but there they are, dying and eating each other and starving. They didn't get the knowledge of good and evil, but they paid the price for it.

That is a good point. Those who believe that only death was introduced by Adam eating the fruit maintain that it wasn't until after man had the knowledge of good and evil and then did evil did he sin. So, sin came from the fruit, not the act of eating it.

Gen 2

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

God was speaking to adults and He expected them to understand.

God created man… God would know if He had made man without a competent brain or not.

God knew what man would do.

But man needs to know how foolishly corrupt he can be.

Sin came from mans disobedience to God.

God said don’t do it and man did it.

The fruit is not the sin …. but an eye opener.

Mans sin is against God.

The same disobedience we see today everywhere…

Its Gods curse I have no problem with it.

I have Gods antidote for the curse.

March 15, 2007

I read the whole chapter and find nothing that says Jesus knew the guy beforehand.

Ok, but in "looking at them as a whole message you sure jumped around a lot, huh?

It is clear, too that in addition to being born-again (maybe), you have to give away all of your possessions:

"...none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up everything he has" (Luke 14:33);
"If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor and you will have riches in heaven" (Matt. 19:21);
"Sell your possessions and give alms" (Luke 12:33);
"But give what is in your cups and plates to the poor, and everything will be clean for you" (Luke 11:41);
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,.... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.... for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:19-21);
"How hardly shall they that have riches enter to the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:23);
"Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt. 19:23-24);
A certain ruler told Jesus that he had obeyed all the commandments from his youth up. But, Jesus said, "Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me" (Luke 18:22, Mark 10:21),
Paul said, "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ" (Phil. 3:8 RSV)
So, you can't have anything of any value and be a true follower of Jesus.

Jesus taught his followers that the end of the world was just around the corner, so material wealth was worthless.

March 15, 2007

I read the whole chapter and find nothing that says Jesus knew the guy beforehand.

Ok, but in "looking at them as a whole message you sure jumped around a lot, huh?

It is clear, too that in addition to being born-again (maybe), you have to give away all of your possessions:

"...none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up everything he has" (Luke 14:33);
"If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor and you will have riches in heaven" (Matt. 19:21);
"Sell your possessions and give alms" (Luke 12:33);
"But give what is in your cups and plates to the poor, and everything will be clean for you" (Luke 11:41);
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,.... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.... for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:19-21);
"How hardly shall they that have riches enter to the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:23);
"Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt. 19:23-24);
A certain ruler told Jesus that he had obeyed all the commandments from his youth up. But, Jesus said, "Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me" (Luke 18:22, Mark 10:21),
Paul said, "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ" (Phil. 3:8 RSV)
So, you can't have anything of any value and be a true follower of Jesus.

I am never so happier after I got saved. and even more happier when I decided to give my life to Jesus.

The money issue, many pastors touch this topic. some of them concerning money said "money is a tool, and you can use it, but not love it; you cannot both love money and God. when you should give money to poor people, if you love God, you would give; but if you love money more than God, probably you will not give. and If you yourself is poor, how can you be a blessing to poor people? if you yourself is very poor, how can you sustain minister? BUT Jesus don't want us to think about worldly things, but be eager about kingdom of God, when we do so, God will add those worldly things to meet our needs.

There are also "walk on water". this need BIG faith. When you willingly give up things to follow Jesus, do the work He want us to do, He will add those things to you. But usually people want God to move first (such as if God give me more money.....), then they move; but in fact we should move first, then God move. again this need BIG faith. I just know God love HIs children so much and I am totally trust on God

March 15, 2007

Gen 2
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
God was speaking to adults and He expected them to understand.
God created man… God would know if He had made man without a competent brain or not.

Well, He created them without the knowledge of good and evil, there's a big minus right there. And no, by your own admission God knew what they were going to do so he didn't expect them to understand, He expected them to eat the fruit, which is exactly what they did.

And what about the serpent? God also knew the serpent would tempt them, which had to happen or Adam would not have eaten the fruit and learned about making mistakes. So the serpent was actually punished for performing a necessary service.

God knew what man would do.
But man needs to know how foolishly corrupt he can be.
Sin came from mans disobedience to God.
God said don’t do it and man did it.

If God can create man from dirt (or nothing), he could certainly create man with knowledge of how corrupt he could be. he could just create man with that notion in his head. Why go through such an elaborate scheme when you can do it so much easier and achieve the same result?

I notice that you don't address the point I made about God creating something specifically torture it. Which is, in fact, exactly what happened.

The fruit is not the sin …. but an eye opener.
Mans sin is against God.
The same disobedience we see today everywhere…

Its Gods curse I have no problem with it.
I have Gods antidote for the curse.

Which begs the question: Why have an antidote in the first place? Why go to the trouble of creating a being that you obviously want to punish (because you know what He will do before He does it--you said so yourself), then change your mind and send your Son down thousands of years later to wipe all of that out--but only for people who believe that such a thing could possibly be true? And, the entire time you are doing it you already know exactly how it will turn out anyway? Why do all this when you can just forgive out of hand--which would actually be benevolent?

We are supposed to turn the other cheek, and forgive those who trespass against us. If I don't believe, I am trespassing against God. So why doesn't he turn the other cheek and forgive me? What possible gain does he enjoy by my "believing" in him?

And forgiving everyone is just as fair and makes just as much sense as the system in place now.

As I said in another post (as yet unaddressed, by the way):

Ghandi: In Hell.

Dahmer: In Heaven.

Buddha: In Hell.

David Berkowitz (aka the Son of Sam): In Heaven.

The Majority of the Jews killed in the Holocaust: In Hell.

Great. Oh, I could also include the billions of people on Earth now who aren't Christian, as well as the millions who lived in the Americas prior to 1492 as being in Hell also.

Infants, hell; young children, Hell; the mentally unfit who can't even figure out what Hell is, Hell.

I have heard it said by some believers that those who did not hear Jesus' message will be judged under the Old Law (although I am not aware of a scripture for this), meaning how well they followed the Commandments. Let's say that is true.

There is a tribe in the Amazon where one woman has many husbands. They walk around naked, as they have no need for the warmth clothing provides. They actually consider it bad luck for a woman to have more than two children by the same husband. They aren't circumcised. They gather food every day--so they don't honor the Sabbath, obviously. They don't even keep track of days that way.

How will God judge them? Does He have a special set of rules for them? And if He has special rules for them, why not special rules for everyone else?

We both know every member of that tribe since Jesus was crucified is going to Hell.

But they were born into sin, too, so it is their fault. They have fee will, and could follow Jesus whenever they want, even though they have never heard of Him. We must go and destroy their peaceful lives (they are almost pathologically non-violent) and teach them about Jesus, put clothes on them and expose them to fatal diseases they have no immunity from because their souls are at stake. After all, we have a book that tells us that they aren't thinking about God the right way.

I am being facetious, but please show me where I have any of the facts wrong.

March 15, 2007

I am never so happier after I got saved. and even more happier when I decided to give my life to Jesus.

I am glad that you are happy. There are about a billion Muslims who can say the same thing. Islam is the fastest growing religion on Earth, by the way.

The money issue, many pastors touch this topic. some of them concerning money said "money is a tool, and you can use it, but not love it; you cannot both love money and God. when you should give money to poor people, if you love God, you would give; but if you love money more than God, probably you will not give. and If you yourself is poor, how can you be a blessing to poor people? if you yourself is very poor, how can you sustain minister? BUT Jesus don't want us to think about worldly things, but be eager about kingdom of God, when we do so, God will add those worldly things to meet our needs.

Oh, I know, because to actually do what Jesus said to do would actually be difficult. Follow the easy stuff, ignore or adapt the difficult stuff.

If you sell your stuff and give it to the poor they immediately benefit. And then you will be poor, too, and as people find the Lord and do what He says lo and behold all of the wealth of the Earth is distributed equally. There are no rich people, there are no poor people because nobody owns anything. Seems like a good idea, until you need to get your appendix out and nobody can do it because they couldn't afford medical school.

There are also "walk on water". this need BIG faith. When you willingly give up things to follow Jesus, do the work He want us to do, He will add those things to you. But usually people want God to move first (such as if God give me more money.....), then they move; but in fact we should move first, then God move. again this need BIG faith. I just know God love HIs children so much and I am totally trust on God

Well, He loves His children who believe the right way, at least. It is also written that if you are a true follower of Jesus you can drink poison and are immune to snake venom. I know there are people in Appalachia who actually did those things (I think they died off--seriously), but as far as I know, no Christians are lining up to take Jesus up on it. Why is that, I wonder? Feel free to drink up whenever, I am curious to see what happens...

Actually, don't because I know that you will die and I don't want you to die.

March 15, 2007

Jesus taught his followers that the end of the world was just around the corner, so material wealth was worthless.

Yep. If I'd known it was going to take this long I wouldn't have given up my iPod...

March 15, 2007

I have never had a "false communication experience" that I know of.

really? i thought we were having one right now... we seem to be misunderstanding each other all over the place.

i'm going to attempt the impossible and TRY to explain to you what i mean by the consciousness of duality. most people have not experienced an alternative to this way of thinking, so bear with me. i mean no offence, btw, when i said you didn't fully grasp what i was saying before. if you have no experience thinking outside the box of duality (and the vast majority of people don't, until they know about it) it's perfectly understandable.

right. the buddha spoke about enlightenment, and the term enlightenment can be used to describe a clarity of thinking that is beyond what i am calling the duality consciousness. in spiritual terms, the duality consciousness means that people see things in terms of separateness, not in terms of oneness. i realise these are terms which also require clarification. suffice it to say, someone viewing the world through the veil of duality will see themselves as a separate entity who has no connection with most of the rest of the planet. they will also see themselves as being separate from the planet. someone who has transcended this way of thinking, someone you might call enlightened, sees that behind the separateness which would seem to be confirmed by our senses, there is a unity in that all life is one - all life is complimentary forces of the same basic force, which i call god.

to the duality consciousness and those people who see the world through it, everything is seen as black and white. god or no god. good or evil. right or wrong. they see these concepts as defined in relation to each other - not in relation to, or as an expression of, a higher reality. the duality consciousness thinks in terms of opposites and it thinks one cannot exist without the other, meaning that everything must have an opposite. thus the duality consciousness can deal with the concept of god (although it doesn't always) but it sees god as one aspect of a relative duality in which it must have an opposite. thus the opposite of god (the devil, or whatever you want to call evil) is necessary to complete the whole. therefore in the duality consciousness, evil is as real as god.

the consequence of this is that the duality consciousness (and those affected by it) believes there is no such thing as absolute truth or indivisible truth. it thinks truth is a concept which must have an opposite, meaning that truth must be defined in relation to untruth and visa versa.

however, there is a consciousness which is beyond this thinking and which sees the fallacy in it. this consciousness has popularly been termed christ consciousness or buddha consciousness in many spiritual teachings. so in the christ/buddha mind, truth is one; it is undivided and undivisible. the mind sees god and knows it is real, consistent and absolute. thus if an idea is in allignment with reality of god, it is ultimately true. if it is out of alignment with god's reality, it is untrue. note that this level of truth and untruth are above duality. untruth is not necessary to define truth. truth simply is, and anything that is not truth is ultimately unreal.

what i have been trying to explain is that once you can see beyond duality, you get a mental, emotional and spiritual measuring stick with which you can see that which is real (in line with god's reality). anything that is not in line with this reality then becomes clear and you see that it's ultimately an illusion.

the duality consciousness cannot see god's reality and thus it defines both truth and untruth as relative concepts. what the duality consciousness sees as truth is NOT the absolute truth of god, but a relative truth of its own creation. whereas the christ/buddha consciousness perceives absolute truth (the measuring stick i spoke of which includes the knowledge of how god's truth feels vibrationally), the duality consciousness defines its own relative truth and then elevates it to the staus of being absolute and infallible.

this is the reason why so many religious people think their particular doctrine is infallible - because looking at it through the duality consciousness, you can argue it is infallible to a sufficient level to convince yourself. in fact when you're in the consciousness of duality, that goes for anything you want to convince yourself of.

looking at things from beyond the consciousness of duality is quite different. beyond it there are no value judgments and you don't believe the lie that everything has an opposite. you can therefore see the truth that god and truth have no opposite and that, as i said before, evil (although a current force on this planet) has no permanent reality. what ARE opposites are 'relative truth' and 'relative untruth'. yet the absolute truth is that only that which is in line with god's law is permanent. all else is an illusion, albeit a very persuasive one.

for two minds locked into the consciousness of duality, a conversation like ours could go on indefinitely with both sides thinking they are right and believing they've said enough to prove it. that happens when you get people who believe everything can be defined in relation to its opposite and it's been the cause of wars for millennia, with both sides convinced they are right.

as ever, with such topics as this, words don't do the concept justice. the mind beyond duality has to be experienced to be understood, and even then, it requires a person to make a conscious decision to step outside their mental box which, in all likelihood, they cannot see because they have never been outside it and therefore think it's all there is.

all i can do is speak as i find and tell you there is another way to think in which questions like 'is there a god?' become irrelevant. after all, who needs to ask the question 'where are my car keys?' when they're holding them in their hand? the experience of looking at the car keys and feeling them renders the question pointless. it is the same with an experience of god. you can argue if you like that experience isn't enough for you, that you need god to call round your house and let you prod him with a big stick before you believe. but i tell you, if god showed up on your doorstep today, there are many ways you could deny the experience. you could decide you were dreaming, delusional, sick, or that whatever claimed to be god was lying, delusional, sick. so you see, there is no 'proof' of god in this world. there is only experience, and were this another topic and we were discussing whether misery really exists, i am sure you would say it does because at some time you have had the experience. you wouldn't then need to be able to measure misery in a petrie dish to say it was real.

good luck to you moai, i mean that sincerely.

EDIT: the avatar... it's not steve mcqueen, it's the british actor paul bettany, looking lovely as ever.

March 15, 2007

Well, He created them without the knowledge of good and evil, there's a big minus right there. And no, by your own admission God knew what they were going to do so he didn't expect them to understand, He expected them to eat the fruit, which is exactly what they did.

And what about the serpent? God also knew the serpent would tempt them, which had to happen or Adam would not have eaten the fruit and learned about making mistakes. So the serpent was actually punished for performing a necessary service.

If God can create man from dirt (or nothing), he could certainly create man with knowledge of how corrupt he could be. he could just create man with that notion in his head. Why go through such an elaborate scheme when you can do it so much easier and achieve the same result?

I notice that you don't address the point I made about God creating something specifically torture it. Which is, in fact, exactly what happened.

Which begs the question: Why have an antidote in the first place? Why go to the trouble of creating a being that you obviously want to punish (because you know what He will do before He does it--you said so yourself), then change your mind and send your Son down thousands of years later to wipe all of that out--but only for people who believe that such a thing could possibly be true? And, the entire time you are doing it you already know exactly how it will turn out anyway? Why do all this when you can just forgive out of hand--which would actually be benevolent?

We are supposed to turn the other cheek, and forgive those who trespass against us. If I don't believe, I am trespassing against God. So why doesn't he turn the other cheek and forgive me? What possible gain does he enjoy by my "believing" in him?

And forgiving everyone is just as fair and makes just as much sense as the system in place now.

As I said in another post (as yet unaddressed, by the way):

Ghandi: In Hell.
Dahmer: In Heaven.
Buddha: In Hell.
David Berkowitz (aka the Son of Sam): In Heaven.
The Majority of the Jews killed in the Holocaust: In Hell.

Great. Oh, I could also include the billions of people on Earth now who aren't Christian, as well as the millions who lived in the Americas prior to 1492 as being in Hell also.

Infants, hell; young children, Hell; the mentally unfit who can't even figure out what Hell is, Hell.

I have heard it said by some believers that those who did not hear Jesus' message will be judged under the Old Law (although I am not aware of a scripture for this), meaning how well they followed the Commandments. Let's say that is true.

There is a tribe in the Amazon where one woman has many husbands. They walk around naked, as they have no need for the warmth clothing provides. They actually consider it bad luck for a woman to have more than two children by the same husband. They aren't circumcised. They gather food every day--so they don't honor the Sabbath, obviously. They don't even keep track of days that way.

How will God judge them? Does He have a special set of rules for them? And if He has special rules for them, why not special rules for everyone else?

We both know every member of that tribe since Jesus was crucified is going to Hell.

But they were born into sin, too, so it is their fault. They have fee will, and could follow Jesus whenever they want, even though they have never heard of Him. We must go and destroy their peaceful lives (they are almost pathologically non-violent) and teach them about Jesus, put clothes on them and expose them to fatal diseases they have no immunity from because their souls are at stake. After all, we have a book that tells us that they aren't thinking about God the right way.

I am being facetious, but please show me where I have any of the facts wrong.

As for Adam and Eve… God did what He did…

I can ask you why we aren’t born with great intelligence from the start.

Say why do we have to mentally grow in knowledge go to college spend thousands of dollars on education and get aletimers what a waste of time and money.

We have to learn and we learn as grow in life. We learn and grow spiritually also hopefully.

Satans fall from Heave changed things. There is a battle for your soul. Satan wants you and so does God.

The cost of sin is grave to God. It requires blood to be shed… no fruit baskets or berries will do; as shown in the Old Testament. [Cain and Able]

In the O.T. believers sacrificed the blood of bull goats… as a covering for sin.

After the cross that is no longer necessary as Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.

His blood is atonement for sin.

God is merciful and slow to anger… He does forgive us… but we have to ask for forgiveness. He wants respect. Think about it you respect many people in this world.

Such as parents, employers, teachers or total strangers [until they give us a reason not to].

Regardless we have respect for men on earth so why would we not have a greater respect for God our creator? God gains you when you believe in Him. He loves you and wants you with Him. He made us for His pleasure and joy. No one in your lifetime will have ever loved or love you more than God.

As far as us deciding who is in Heaven or Hell that’s not our job.

Free gift of grace

8“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

(9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:

free gift ...of grace all babies and children are covered under it until they are young adults (all mature differently. say around 18 - 21) and reject Jesus.

As for handicapped or mentally impaired or any questions we may have.

We can know …

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.

(Ps 98.9)

Equity- and none will say 'not fair' with God's judgment... none will argue their situation is unfair. We can know for certain through Equity all will be judged.

Before the cross there was an exemption of some sinners…. Noted in God Winked.

Acts 17:23

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

1 Corinthians 14:2

For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

God Winked

Acts 17:30

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Apparently through their ignorance in God we can assume in their worship of Him … some things were not right… as we look at the Ten Commandments…

Its obvious the firsts of the Ten would have been broken… for some had no name or lack of knowledge of Him. He was the UNKNOWN GOD.

Now we read ……but now commanded all men every where to repent:

What does repent mean?

It means to ask forgiveness of our sins. Correct?

Ignorant people that worshipped an unknown are not held in account to repent. Why? They were ignorant of God…

What we know as sin… they did not.. as we can read in; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God,

The Ten Commandments ... James 2:10-11 Break one break all.

What happens to people that never heard of God… do they go to Hell?

Before Jesus… there was a wink of God.

For the exemption of the ignorant.

Since the Cross all men must be held accountable and repent.

As for keeping the Sabbath day Holy there is a bit of mix up… we are not certain if its Saturday or Sunday? Some worship on both days just incase.

Strive to be Holy and do the right thing leave Equity to Jesus.

March 15, 2007

What confusion can there be on the Sabbath? For thousands of years it has been from Sundown Friday evenings untill Sundown Sat evening.

Worshiping on Sunday was the day for worshipping the Roman pagan Sun God Mithra. If you are worshipping on Sunday you are not observing the Sabbath. Also the 25th of Dec is also the birthday of Mithra. Mithra was also born in a cave and of virgin Birth. Mithra died for mans sins and he is the go between from man to the Creator God. Yet Mithra was around at least 2000 years before the advent of the Christian faith. Many believe that Sun Worship and Mithra started in India moved to Persia and then was adopted by The Roman Army. Mithra was the one unifying god of Roman and Greek culture.

March 15, 2007

really? i thought we were having one right now... we seem to be misunderstanding each other all over the place.

Ha! Please forgive the edits I have made; I only have responses to a little of it.

i'm going to attempt the impossible and TRY to explain to you what i mean by the consciousness of duality. most people have not experienced an alternative to this way of thinking, so bear with me. i mean no offence, btw, when i said you didn't fully grasp what i was saying before. if you have no experience thinking outside the box of duality (and the vast majority of people don't, until they know about it) it's perfectly understandable.

I don't take offense at all.

...all life is complimentary forces of the same basic force, which i call god.

Aspects of Judaism suggest this also.

...therefore in the duality consciousness, evil is as real as god.

Above, should "god" read "good"? So far I am following you fine.

however, there is a consciousness which is beyond this thinking and which sees the fallacy in it. this consciousness has popularly been termed christ consciousness or buddha consciousness in many spiritual teachings. so in the christ/buddha mind, truth is one; it is undivided and undivisible. the mind sees god and knows it is real, consistent and absolute. thus if an idea is in allignment with reality of god, it is ultimately true. if it is out of alignment with god's reality, it is untrue. note that this level of truth and untruth are above duality. untruth is not necessary to define truth. truth simply is, and anything that is not truth is ultimately unreal.

Well, that is duality as well, if there is Ultimate Truth and all that doesn't fit that is Ultimately Unreal, you are defining things dually also. The thing is either in alignment or it isn't, it is ultimately true or unreal. You just say "unreal" instead of "false."

And not all things are dualistic. There is good and evil. I cannot conceive of the opposite of that. I know that there is good and there is evil, and I can see good and evil, but I cannot see that which is NOT good and evil. By your above reasoning, the fact that there is good and evil must be Ultimately True.

what i have been trying to explain is that once you can see beyond duality, you get a mental, emotional and spiritual measuring stick with which you can see that which is real (in line with god's reality). anything that is not in line with this reality then becomes clear and you see that it's ultimately an illusion.

Real or illusion. Duality.

the duality consciousness cannot see god's reality and thus it defines both truth and untruth as relative concepts. what the duality consciousness sees as truth is NOT the absolute truth of god, but a relative truth of its own creation. whereas the christ/buddha consciousness perceives absolute truth (the measuring stick i spoke of which includes the knowledge of how god's truth feels vibrationally), the duality consciousness defines its own relative truth and then elevates it to the staus of being absolute and infallible.

I cannot fathom a system of justice that would be worth anything based on that line of thinking.

this is the reason why so many religious people think their particular doctrine is infallible - because looking at it through the duality consciousness, you can argue it is infallible to a sufficient level to convince yourself. in fact when you're in the consciousness of duality, that goes for anything you want to convince yourself of.

Your concept of "oneness" is itself a construct, and you also perceive it to be infallible. Most religious people think that their belief system is infallible because it is their's, and are reluctant to challenge it, or accept evidence that is contrary to it.

looking at things from beyond the consciousness of duality is quite different. beyond it there are no value judgments and you don't believe the lie that everything has an opposite. you can therefore see the truth that god and truth have no opposite and that, as i said before, evil (although a current force on this planet) has no permanent reality. what ARE opposites are 'relative truth' and 'relative untruth'. yet the absolute truth is that only that which is in line with god's law is permanent. all else is an illusion, albeit a very persuasive one.

While evil may have no permanent reality (and nothing in the Universe is permanent), it is obviously a "force" with which I must deal. I cannot simply call someone killing millions "false" or outside of "consciousness" and expect them to stop killing, or sit and think about it and decide if it is outside of god's will or not or if killing is part of Ultimate Truth or any somesuch. While it may be less enlightened in your view, I prefer to think dualistically and do whatever I can to stop the killing.

There are people starving, right now. Now true, to even say that they are starving would mean that someone somewhere must not be starving or I wouldn't know the difference--for what that's worth. Now, since I have never been starving I cannot know what it is like to starve, but I can see the effects of starvation, and because I can think abstractly I can surmise that starving sucks "ultimately".

How does altruism fit into this belief system of yours?

for two minds locked into the consciousness of duality, a conversation like ours could go on indefinitely with both sides thinking they are right and believing they've said enough to prove it. that happens when you get people who believe everything can be defined in relation to its opposite and it's been the cause of wars for millennia, with both sides convinced they are right.

I don't see it as being a question of "right" or even "true" in that sense. It is more a case of "harmful" and "not". Delusions can be harmful, both to the individual and to society at large.

as ever, with such topics as this, words don't do the concept justice. the mind beyond duality has to be experienced to be understood, and even then, it requires a person to make a conscious decision to step outside their mental box which, in all likelihood, they cannot see because they have never been outside it and therefore think it's all there is.

Perhaps. But why step out of the box if it is working? Through experimentation and observation I can arrive at certain conclusions. This belief system itself can be tested itself to determine its validity. While your belief system very well may be "Ultimately True," in order to determine that I would have to accept it in the first place--which I cannot do, as here in the dual world there is no evidence for it.

And while that may mean I am a slave or not truly free or what have you, I think that the child with leukemia who is cured by scientific thinking is happier because my thought process exists. What benefit to man does yours impart--aside from whatever individual solace you enjoy?

all i can do is speak as i find and tell you there is another way to think in which questions like 'is there a god?' become irrelevant.

Because you have somehow determined that there is one. Or that everything is god, and since I can see everything god exists.

after all, who needs to ask the question 'where are my car keys?' when they're holding them in their hand? the experience of looking at the car keys and feeling them renders the question pointless.

True. But you cannot know god the same way that you know car keys. The evidence for your car keys is tangible, as you can feel them in your hand; also, other people can see your car keys easily, and can even point them out to you. Not so of god, even by your definition.

it is the same with an experience of god. you can argue if you like that experience isn't enough for you, that you need god to call round your house and let you prod him with a big stick before you believe. but i tell you, if god showed up on your doorstep today, there are many ways you could deny the experience. you could decide you were dreaming, delusional, sick, or that whatever claimed to be god was lying, delusional, sick.

Quite true. Now, I don't need to prod him with a big stick necessarily, or even see him or talk to him. But if I am to believe those who claim to know him--you included--he must at least be logical. I don't even require god to be "good". It is possible that there is a god and he is totally evil, or as you suggest embodies aspects of both (Judaism suggests this, too).

But, given how I see the world, if God came in I would definitely think I was having delusions, as would many believers on the planet.

Why is it that if I walk up to a devout Christian and claim to have just spoken to Jesus as I am speaking to you, they would think I was crazy? They believe in Him, but for some reason the idea that I could have an actual conversation with Him and that He stood right in front of me makes me insane. And this is from believers, again.

so you see, there is no 'proof' of god in this world. there is only experience, and were this another topic and we were discussing whether misery really exists, i am sure you would say it does because at some time you have had the experience. you wouldn't then need to be able to measure misery in a petrie dish to say it was real.

Are you saying that misery doesn't exist?

It sure seems like your belief system is cumbersome.

good luck to you moai, i mean that sincerely.

EDIT: the avatar... it's not steve mcqueen, it's the british actor paul bettany, looking lovely as ever.

Thank you, and best wishes!

March 15, 2007

As for Adam and Eve… God did what He did…
I can ask you why we aren’t born with great intelligence from the start.

Well, there is a difference between "intelligence" and "knowledge." We re born with a great deal of intelligence--some more than others--but we are born with no knowledge.

Adam and Eve had limited knowledge, and yet were asked to make decisions based on limited information, and when that decision turned out to be the wrong one, were punished for it.

And that would be fine as far as that goes, except to punish someone for making a bad decision when they did not have access to all the information is unfair. And it even gores beyond all the information--they had no knowledge that such a thing as good and evil exists.

But that is not the point. You said yourself that God knew they would fail before it even happened. And while I think it is unjust, let's say making them leave the Garden of Eden is fair, and now they know how low they can go and they needed to learn that lesson.

Why increase Eve's pain during childbirth? Doesn't that seem punitive? And why take the serpents legs off--especially since Satan must have been "possessing" the serpent the whole time, as I don't think even you believe that all snakes are somehow demons or evil, do you?

Say why do we have to mentally grow in knowledge go to college spend thousands of dollars on education and get aletimers what a waste of time and money.
We have to learn and we learn as grow in life. We learn and grow spiritually also hopefully.

Well, I don't think it is a waste of time and money, and there really isn't anything else to do.

Since we cannot grow spiritually unless we know good from evil, why is it such a horrible thing for us to have that knowledge? It obviously helps us know what is God and what is Satan, right? So it is necessary for us to have this knowledge, and yet God punished us for getting it.

Satans fall from Heave changed things. There is a battle for your soul. Satan wants you and so does God.
The cost of sin is grave to God. It requires blood to be shed… no fruit baskets or berries will do; as shown in the Old Testament. [Cain and Able]
In the O.T. believers sacrificed the blood of bull goats… as a covering for sin.

Which is sick, I don't mind telling you. God demands blood? To what end?

I have asked you this before, and I'll ask it again: Is Satan retarded? he knows God and talks to him--just read Job. He has seen Heaven. And yet for whatever reason He doesn't want to be around god, nor does he want to be in Heaven. How can this be?

And if you say it is because Satan is evil, a being that is entirely good cannot create evil. It is impossible. So if God created Satan, he is not entirely good. I would add that a being that demands blood sacrifice isn't absolutely good, either.

And, by your own admission, God knew all this would happen before it did. Either there are things beyond His control and He HAD to do it (you don't believe that there is anything outside of God's control, do you?), even though He knew what would happen, or He created all of this just so it WOULD happen, in which case everything, even Satan, is God's will. I cannot for the life of me understand how you fail to realize that.

After the cross that is no longer necessary as Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.
His blood is atonement for sin.

It shouldn't be necessary in the first place. God created Adam and Eve, punished us for sin, demands atonement and blood sacrifice, and gave us Jesus SIMULTANEOUSLY. Since He knows what has happened and what is happening and what is GOING TO happen, for Him it is as if it already has.

God sent Adam out into the world knowing that one day Jesus would come and redeem his folly. God also knew that He wants blood during all of this. To what end? He's God, why doesn't he just create all the blood he needs to satisfy him?

And before you say, "God doesn't want robots" in truth that is exactly what He wants. He created Adam knowing Adam would sin. He demands blood to atone for this, which He knew he would want. BUt He really doesn't want that much blood, as the blood of His son pretty much takes care of the need right there.

Why all the hoops? When Adam and Eve left the Garden, He could have said "Look Here!" and pointed to a cross with Jesus on it, and said, "This is my only begotten Son, and I am killing Him because I demand blood, and His will take care of it. But you have to believe He is my son, or no dice." And then off into history we go. The whole Bible would be a pamphlet. It would definitely be more expedient.

God is merciful and slow to anger

Nope. He got pretty mad pretty fast during the whole Garden of Eden affair.

… He does forgive us… but we have to ask for forgiveness. He wants respect. Think about it you respect many people in this world.
Such as parents, employers, teachers or total strangers [until they give us a reason not to].

Why would God need respect? That is like me saying I want all aphids to respect me. I don't care if aphids even know if I exist (which they don't).

Regardless we have respect for men on earth so why would we not have a greater respect for God our creator? God gains you when you believe in Him. He loves you and wants you with Him. He made us for His pleasure and joy. No one in your lifetime will have ever loved or love you more than God.

You say so yourself: We respect people until they give us reason not to. If the God described in your book is real, I have no reason to respect Him. His punishments are unjust, he behaves irrationally, and He is cruel for no other sake than it pleases Him. Have you ever read the Old Testament?

So God loves us so much that He sent His son. That is great, but He doesn't love us so much that everyone gets a pass, only those who think the right way. Notice, not "behave" the right way, but THINK the right way. When humans lock up other humans for what they think, they are called "prisoners of conscience" and we consider their human rights violated. God sends such people to Hell and we call Him "good and loving." Amazing.

As far as us deciding who is in Heaven or Hell that’s not our job.

No, it's God's job and he isn't very good at it. I would like to know your thoughts on the small list I gave of who is in Heaven and who is in Hell.

Free gift of grace

8“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
(9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:

free gift ...of grace all babies and children are covered under it until they are young adults (all mature differently. say around 18 - 21) and reject Jesus.

Nope. You want it to be this way, but it isn't. There is no scripture for this, and you know it. The Bible says all are born in and conceived in sin:

Psalm 51:5 - "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."

Psalm 58:5 - "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies."

Also, you say yourself that the only way to go to Heaven is to be born again. How can an infant be born again?

I can also quote from Eternal Perspectives Ministries: "I still think it's critical to realize that most people base their beliefs about infant salvation on a ground that is not biblical--"children deserve to go to heaven" or "children don't deserve to go to hell."

From a human point of view, that seems right. (And I'm human enough for it to appeal to me.) But from a Scriptural point of view it isn't. So, bottom line, I believe that babies who die go to heaven. But even as I say that, I realize it's a big stretch and I cannot prove it scripturally."

You believe infants go to Heaven. I believe that they go to Hell. I base my idea on the book. You base yours on what feels good.

As for handicapped or mentally impaired or any questions we may have.
We can know …
He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
(Ps 98.9)

Equity- and none will say 'not fair' with God's judgment... none will argue their situation is unfair. We can know for certain through Equity all will be judged.

So Psalm 98:9 supercedes these passages (where Jesus is talking, by the way), which say that we are saved through faith, and faith alone:

Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. John 3:18, 36 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already .... He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. Acts 16:30-31 Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. Romans 1:16-17 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God salvation to every one that believeth.... As it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Romans 3:20 By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Romans 3:28 A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Romans 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory? Romans 4:13 For the promise ... was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Romans 5:1 Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 10:9 If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Galatians 2:16 A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:11-12 The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

If we are only saved by faith, infants and everyone I mentioned in my previous post is in Hell. You believe that you are saved by grave in faith, right? Well, if that's true, wave to the infants as they go off to burn forever. Make sure you "Shout 'God loves you!'" loud enough for them to hear, the furnace is a bit noisy.

Before the cross there was an exemption of some sinners…. Noted in God Winked.

Acts 17:23
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

Nope. I read the whole chapter, and there is nothing in there about an exemption for some sinners. The passage you quote above is from Paul telling Athenians they are too superstitious.

And if you believe in an exemption for some sinners, how do you know that I am going to Hell then? You said above that deciding who goes to Heaven and Hell is not our job. So, you can read the Bible and make an educated guess as to who is going to Hell, but you don't really know, do you?

If you believe that we are saved by grace through faith, then you believe that infants are in Hell, as are all the people who never heard of him, and the mentally handicapped. If you don't, you are adding to the word, and that will strike your name out of the Book of the Lamb. Isn't the Bible clear about that?

1 Corinthians 14:2
For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

Huh? I think that this passage is about speaking in tongues, isn't it? Unknown tongue here isn't "foreign language"...if you read the entire chapter, it has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

God Winked
Acts 17:30
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Yep. Proves my point. I take "all men everywhere" to mean just that. ANd that would include North and South America, wouldn't it?

Apparently through their ignorance in God we can assume in their worship of Him … some things were not right… as we look at the Ten Commandments…

Its obvious the firsts of the Ten would have been broken… for some had no name or lack of knowledge of Him. He was the UNKNOWN GOD.

Mmmm, no. The "unknown god" thing specifically addresses superstition of the Athenians, not people who have never heard of Jesus. The peoples living here had (and precious few still have) their own gods, with their own names. Their God(s) was not "unknown". If this were so, when the Israelites defeated the Midianites God would have said, "Oh, by the way, those temples to that other God are really to me, so it's cool." Also, there would be no commandment to not have any other gods before me. Obviously, all these other people do.

Now we read ……but now commanded all men every where to repent:
What does repent mean?

It means to ask forgiveness of our sins. Correct?

Ignorant people that worshipped an unknown are not held in account to repent. Why? They were ignorant of God…

Nonsense. Save for an inscription on a temple in Athens, nobody anywhere worships an unknown god and you know it.

What you suggest is that the Aztecs have no need to repent because all the while they were sacrificing humans to their gods, they didn't know Jehovah, so they get a pass? Is that what you are saying?

And after Jesus was crucified, they were still sacrificing humans. And they knew who their gods were. So, the ones who lived before Jesus are fine, but the ones after go to Hell? Is that right?

If that is so, then Jesus screwed them.

And if it is true that by worshiping "unknown god" as you put it they need not repent, why go evangelize them? They are already set, they don't need to hear about Jesus or anything. In fact, the second you tell them about Jesus they are doomed, because now they know, and they will go to Hell--by your thinking. So it is obviously better to not tell anyone from other cultures about Jesus, lest they be damned.

What we know as sin… they did not.. as we can read in; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God,
The Ten Commandments ... James 2:10-11 Break one break all.

What happens to people that never heard of God… do they go to Hell?
Before Jesus… there was a wink of God.
For the exemption of the ignorant.
Since the Cross all men must be held accountable and repent.

Ok. So the second they nailed Jesus up, all the people of the Americas inexplicably to them, started going to Hell. And, since they had no idea that such a thing was happening, they continued to believe as they did, damned the whole time.

As for keeping the Sabbath day Holy there is a bit of mix up… we are not certain if its Saturday or Sunday? Some worship on both days just incase.
Strive to be Holy and do the right thing leave Equity to Jesus.

Honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy. If you aren't sure, I'd hurry up and figure it out.

March 15, 2007

Well, that is duality as well, if there is Ultimate Truth and all that doesn't fit that is Ultimately Unreal, you are defining things dually also.

not so. ultimate reality doesn't need unreality to exist to define it. this is the difference, and it's the subtlety of the duality consciousness that most people miss or cannot grasp. see, i explained carefully that the consciousness of duality will tell you that one thing only exists in relation to its opposite. yet because you need to believe this is not the case, you made the assertion that ultimate truth is the opposite of ultimate untruth. that's duality speaking so loudly i can hear it across the atlantic! do you see the point? ultimate truth has no opposite. it requires no opposite to define it. when you find the truth that requires no opposite to define it you will have found god.

And not all things are dualistic. There is good and evil. I cannot conceive of the opposite of that.

good IS the opposite of evil, moai. relative good and relative evil exist ONLY in relation to each other. the term 'good' has no meaning without defining the term 'bad'.

Real or illusion. Duality.

only if you're thinking from within a mental box which tells you these things are defined in terms of their opposites. you are, yet i am trying to explain that the ultimate truth of god, the reality of god, needs no opposite. it simply IS. i realise you won't accept this because you haven't seen it for yourself, but i have seen it and therefore see great worth in explaining to people that they will be free ONLY when they have taken a look outside their particular mental box of how they think the world works. i don't care what conclusions they draw once they've had a look. but i would like more other people to see the view fron out here.

Your concept of "oneness" is itself a construct, and you also perceive it to be infallible.

my belief in the oneness of all life came about when i abandoned my previous construct. i cannot tell you in words what it is like to expand your consciousness to the point where you no longer see things dualistically, neither would i wish to rob you of the joy of finding out for yourself. but there is far more in this universe than you have ever dreamed of. and whether my new world view is a false construct or a genuine vision based on reality is a guess on your part, but that doesn't stop you thinking your guess is right, does it?

While it may be less enlightened in your view, I prefer to think dualistically and do whatever I can to stop the killing.

wow. saving the world must take up a lot of your time. okay, i'm joking. it's wonderful to act nobly and try to bring about a better world. i just hope you really do it, not just construct the view that, theoretically, you WOULD do what you can if you had more time, or more money, or more power. people are dying while people like us think like that.

How does altruism fit into this belief system of yours?

i suppose it depends how you define the word. i see no point in selfishly trying to raise myself up without trying to raise up all life - to which i know i am inextricably connected. so seeking to compare myself to other people has no meaning for me since we are all one. i know that what harm i do to other people, i am doing to myself. so i treat other people as i would like to be treated, and cherish the divinity in every person i meet. i am committed to acting with divine kindness (which is not quite the same as being soft and gentle all the time) and total forgiveness towards people. i am also committed to being an example to people that there is another way, beyond self interest in which truly lies freedom and peace and wholeness and wisdom. if this is your definition of altruism, so be it.

Perhaps. But why step out of the box if it is working?

working for whom? look, if everything you thought was wrong, wouldn't you want to know? and the answer 'yes i would (but everything i think is right)' is demonstrating a fear-based approach to life. it is demonstrating that you are comfy in your box and would rather live in ignorance than know truth. it's fine if you make that choice, but know there IS a choice.

What benefit to man does yours impart--aside from whatever individual solace you enjoy?

freedom is a benefit in itself, wouldn't you say? of course there are also global benefits to raising the consciousness of humankind. you think the science you love would be possible if some people in every generation hadn't called current thinking into question and dared to look beyond what they thought they knew? no. if people were all content with the status quo we'd still be living in caves.

The evidence for your car keys is tangible, as you can feel them in your hand; also, other people can see your car keys easily, and can even point them out to you. Not so of god, even by your definition.

have you ever met a really holy person? i have. i interviewed someone once, a very old man, who exuded peace. it's odd, when you're in the presence of someone who changes the atmosphere around them, you can feel it. it's tangible. you can't see it or touch it, but you can feel it. if you believe the presence of car keys is more tangible than the presence of god, i can only tell you that you haven't experienced the presence of god yet.

It is possible that there is a god and he is totally evil, or as you suggest embodies aspects of both (Judaism suggests this, too).

i'd just like to clarify this. god gives a portion of his being to humans and they can embody evil (at least temporarily), but the allness of god, the god that is beyond form, the heart of god if you like, is unconditional love. god doesn't embody both good and evil. we, as humans, with a spark of the divine inside us, embody relative good and relative evil (and many shades in between). but god is unconditional love. in him there is no darkness at all. see, this is where words become so limiting. the allness of god, the pure being of god, doesn't have elements of evil at all. we make free will choices to accept evil, but in essence god isn't anything less than unconditional love and absolute truth.

But, given how I see the world, if God came in I would definitely think I was having delusions, as would many believers on the planet.

interesting. so you believe other people's (scientific) evidence, but you don't believe your own eyes? well at least you admitted that it's how you see the world, your own construct if you like, that's the barrier to you believing in god. although this in itself is progress to seeing beyond that construct even if you don't find god beyond it.

Why is it that if I walk up to a devout Christian and claim to have just spoken to Jesus as I am speaking to you, they would think I was crazy? They believe in Him, but for some reason the idea that I could have an actual conversation with Him and that He stood right in front of me makes me insane. And this is from believers, again.

because they too suffer from the delusion that what they now know is all that can be known. they think god could dictate one book but say he's never allowed to dictate another. they think god has one representative and is never allowed to have another. it's a way of limiting god so he fits into their own little box. i try telling them, do you think they listen..?

Are you saying that misery doesn't exist?

no, emotions exist. they just can't be expressed accurately or proven objectively.

It sure seems like your belief system is cumbersome.

that's because i'm giving you in one fell swoop teachings it's taken me a year to internalise. cumbersome? nah. only in the same way a biology student would think the construction of a flower cumbersome on his first day at high school. give it a few years, the same student will eventually be able to break the flower down into its parts, see how they work together and understand it makes perfect sense.

March 15, 2007

What confusion can there be on the Sabbath? For thousands of years it has been from Sundown Friday evenings untill Sundown Sat evening.
Worshiping on Sunday was the day for worshipping the Roman pagan Sun God Mithra. If you are worshipping on Sunday you are not observing the Sabbath. Also the 25th of Dec is also the birthday of Mithra. Mithra was also born in a cave and of virgin Birth. Mithra died for mans sins and he is the go between from man to the Creator God. Yet Mithra was around at least 2000 years before the advent of the Christian faith. Many believe that Sun Worship and Mithra started in India moved to Persia and then was adopted by The Roman Army. Mithra was the one unifying god of Roman and Greek culture.

The thing about Mithra is it's possible that the idea of his death for the sins of man was brought in as a response to Christianity. It's also possible that this concept was associated with Mithra before Christianity. We simply don't know. Both religions competed for adherents in the first several centuries of the common era and would borrow themes from each other. The same goes for transubstantiation. we know the Cult of Mithras practiced the idea of transubstantiation, but we don't know if they got it from Christianity, or vice-versa.

The fact that he was a ressurecting Godman does seems to have been in place before Christianity.

However, the idea of dying for the sins of man was actually a prevelant concept in Second Temple Judaism well before Christianity. Macabees 4 (which wasn't accepted into the Gospel cannon) has a figure sacrificing himself for the redemption of mankind. He isn't considered a God, but he is a living human sacrifice for mankind. This was probably written several hundred years before Christ.

March 15, 2007

Here is something interesting, also found at Qumran, and you can see the old Jewish idea of the Messiah transitioning from warlord to something more recognizable to Gentiles, It's been called Apocalypse of the Messiah (200 BC)

The heavens and the earth will listen to His Messiah and none therein will stray from the Commandments of the holy ones....For the Lord will consider the pious and call the righteous by name. Over the poor His spirit will hover and will renew the faithful with His power. He liberates the captives restores sight to the blind, straightens the bent....The Lord will accomplish glorious things...He will heal the wounded, revive the dead and bring the good news to the poor.

March 15, 2007

What confusion can there be on the Sabbath? For thousands of years it has been from Sundown Friday evenings untill Sundown Sat evening.
Worshiping on Sunday was the day for worshipping the Roman pagan Sun God Mithra. If you are worshipping on Sunday you are not observing the Sabbath. Also the 25th of Dec is also the birthday of Mithra. Mithra was also born in a cave and of virgin Birth. Mithra died for mans sins and he is the go between from man to the Creator God. Yet Mithra was around at least 2000 years before the advent of the Christian faith. Many believe that Sun Worship and Mithra started in India moved to Persia and then was adopted by The Roman Army. Mithra was the one unifying god of Roman and Greek culture.

Is that it Topper?

Lost my notes on this topic.

I thought there was more to it.

So it didn’t have anything to do with the different Jewish Calendars?

And can you explain the confusion over the birth date of Christ?

March 15, 2007

Is that it Topper?
Lost my notes on this topic.
I thought there was more to it.
So it didn’t have anything to do with the different Jewish Calendars?
And can you explain the confusion over the birth date of Christ?

Well, what he's getting at is that Constantine co-opted all of the pagan days of celebration.

I don't think we have much in th way of dates so far as Jesus' life goes. We know that Pilate was procurator during his death and we know from archeological finds that that was in the 20's AD. We know that he died during passover....other than that we have nothing.

March 15, 2007

Acts 17:23

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

1 Corinthians 14:2

For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

God Winked

Acts 17:30

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

___________________________

And everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved;

for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance,

as Yahweh has said, among the survivors whom Yahweh calls. (Joel 2:32)

So said the Father…

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

For it is by grace you have been saved, though faith - and this not

from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one

can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So said the Son…

Apparently God knows not all that have lived and died have had a

chance to hear and repent of their sins.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth

all men every where to repent: Acts 17:30

(Apparently no one will judged upon I never had a chance to hear…)

Here we see a rare wink of God to forgive those that did lack knowledge

and a chance to decide.

Goes on to say BUT NOW … but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent!!!

Acts 17:30

The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.

(Ps 145.8f)

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.

(Ps 98.9)

And none will say 'not fair' with God's judgment... none will argue their situation is unfair.

You must think God is pretty ugly to send infants, children to hell.

He said He judges with equity.

He also said Matthew 19:14

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

We have to know God is just and fair not evil.

March 15, 2007

As for Adam and Eve… God did what He did…
I can ask you why we aren’t born with great intelligence from the start.
Say why do we have to mentally grow in knowledge go to college spend thousands of dollars on education and get aletimers what a waste of time and money.
We have to learn and we learn as grow in life. We learn and grow spiritually also hopefully.

Satans fall from Heave changed things. There is a battle for your soul. Satan wants you and so does God.
The cost of sin is grave to God. It requires blood to be shed… no fruit baskets or berries will do; as shown in the Old Testament. [Cain and Able]
In the O.T. believers sacrificed the blood of bull goats… as a covering for sin.

After the cross that is no longer necessary as Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice.
His blood is atonement for sin.
God is merciful and slow to anger… He does forgive us… but we have to ask for forgiveness. He wants respect. Think about it you respect many people in this world.
Such as parents, employers, teachers or total strangers [until they give us a reason not to].
Regardless we have respect for men on earth so why would we not have a greater respect for God our creator? God gains you when you believe in Him. He loves you and wants you with Him. He made us for His pleasure and joy. No one in your lifetime will have ever loved or love you more than God.

As far as us deciding who is in Heaven or Hell that’s not our job.

Free gift of grace

8“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
(9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:

free gift ...of grace all babies and children are covered under it until they are young adults (all mature differently. say around 18 - 21) and reject Jesus.

As for handicapped or mentally impaired or any questions we may have.
We can know …
He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
(Ps 98.9)

Equity- and none will say 'not fair' with God's judgment... none will argue their situation is unfair. We can know for certain through Equity all will be judged.

Before the cross there was an exemption of some sinners…. Noted in God Winked.

Acts 17:23
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

1 Corinthians 14:2
For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

God Winked
Acts 17:30
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Apparently through their ignorance in God we can assume in their worship of Him … some things were not right… as we look at the Ten Commandments…

Its obvious the firsts of the Ten would have been broken… for some had no name or lack of knowledge of Him. He was the UNKNOWN GOD.

Now we read ……but now commanded all men every where to repent:
What does repent mean?

It means to ask forgiveness of our sins. Correct?

Ignorant people that worshipped an unknown are not held in account to repent. Why? They were ignorant of God…

What we know as sin… they did not.. as we can read in; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God,
The Ten Commandments ... James 2:10-11 Break one break all.

What happens to people that never heard of God… do they go to Hell?
Before Jesus… there was a wink of God.
For the exemption of the ignorant.
Since the Cross all men must be held accountable and repent.

As for keeping the Sabbath day Holy there is a bit of mix up… we are not certain if its Saturday or Sunday? Some worship on both days just incase.
Strive to be Holy and do the right thing leave Equity to Jesus.

I want to make a correction in my post on… handicapped… Allow me to strike that label from my post.

Because it can reflect on a physical ailment as appose a mental one.

I wanted to focus on the mentally handicapped or mentally impaired

lacking ability to reason from birth onward.

[Even still I believe God has a way of reaching the hearts of these individuals spiritually no doubt as anything is possible with God]

I appreciate that in any situation we can imagine and say well what of that person? We can know God judges with equity. He is fair and none will say... Not fair.

Yes affirmatively since the cross…. God demands all of to be saved; and He judges with equity. Its important to know that; God is just.

March 15, 2007

Moai

[i have asked you this before, and I'll ask it again: Is Satan retarded? he knows God and talks to him--just read Job. He has seen Heaven. And yet for whatever reason He doesn't want to be around god, nor does he want to be in Heaven. How can this be?

And if you say it is because Satan is evil, a being that is entirely good cannot create evil. It is impossible. So if God created Satan, he is not entirely good. I would add that a being that demands blood sacrifice isn't absolutely good, either.

And, by your own admission, God knew all this would happen before it did.

Either there are things beyond His control and He HAD to do it

(you don't believe that there is anything outside of God's control, do you?),

even though He knew what would happen, or He created all of this just so it WOULD happen,

in which case everything, even Satan, is God's will. I cannot for the life of me understand how you fail to realize that.]

_________________________________________________

Isaiah 13-14 For thou hast said in thine heart,

I ...will ascend into heaven,

I ...will exalt my throne above the stars of God:

I ...will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

I ...will ascend above the heights of the clouds;

I ...will be like the most High.

Lucifer had ...I trouble...he should have seen an optometrist.

Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

Pride.... Is sin. Lucifer fell because of Pride.

1 Timothy 3:6

Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil

____

You’re leaving freewill out of the equation. God knew but; what of freewill.

So every time a child is aborted do we say God did it?

God knows which children are going to be aborted.

But He does not do it.

God knows… and freewill does what it wants.

Angelic beings as well as man were created with freewill or one third of those beings would not have followed Lucifer out of Heaven.

March 15, 2007

not so. ultimate reality doesn't need unreality to exist to define it. this is the difference, and it's the subtlety of the duality consciousness that most people miss or cannot grasp. see, i explained carefully that the consciousness of duality will tell you that one thing only exists in relation to its opposite. yet because you need to believe this is not the case, you made the assertion that ultimate truth is the opposite of ultimate untruth. that's duality speaking so loudly i can hear it across the atlantic! do you see the point? ultimate truth has no opposite. it requires no opposite to define it. when you find the truth that requires no opposite to define it you will have found god.

I see your point, and no offense, I think that it is silly. Whether I am seeing that because I am stuck in duality or not, I don't care. None of these definitions change anything. Reality is reality no matter how you choose to describe it or look at it. If I look at a peach and I hate peaches, that doesn't change the peach. It only changes my experience in relation to it. And on and on. Such things are fun to ponder, but eventually somebody is going to have to get some works done.

good IS the opposite of evil, moai. relative good and relative evil exist ONLY in relation to each other. the term 'good' has no meaning without defining the term 'bad'.

But I recall you saying that there is no evil, that there is just god's will and Ultimate Truth and unreality.

only if you're thinking from within a mental box which tells you these things are defined in terms of their opposites. you are, yet i am trying to explain that the ultimate truth of god, the reality of god, needs no opposite. it simply IS. i realise you won't accept this because you haven't seen it for yourself, but i have seen it and therefore see great worth in explaining to people that they will be free ONLY when they have taken a look outside their particular mental box of how they think the world works. i don't care what conclusions they draw once they've had a look. but i would like more other people to see the view fron out here.

No matter how you say that you can experience beyond duality, I notice you still must use duality to explain it. And where you are might be awesome, but that still doesn't mean that you are just fantasizing all of it. Your strength of feeling is so strong that you assert that you "know" that what you say is accurate, but devout believers of all stripes make the same claim for the same reason.

my belief in the oneness of all life came about when i abandoned my previous construct. i cannot tell you in words what it is like to expand your consciousness to the point where you no longer see things dualistically, neither would i wish to rob you of the joy of finding out for yourself. but there is far more in this universe than you have ever dreamed of. and whether my new world view is a false construct or a genuine vision based on reality is a guess on your part, but that doesn't stop you thinking your guess is right, does it?

Well put, but I can use evidence to determine if your reality is a guess or not. I understand that all life is one--or rather, that you think so. And it very well may be. But please describe how much better off the world would be if science was abandoned in favor of your way of thinking.

wow. saving the world must take up a lot of your time. okay, i'm joking. it's wonderful to act nobly and try to bring about a better world. i just hope you really do it, not just construct the view that, theoretically, you WOULD do what you can if you had more time, or more money, or more power. people are dying while people like us think like that.

I do. I am not in the Peace Corps or anything, of course.

i suppose it depends how you define the word. i see no point in selfishly trying to raise myself up without trying to raise up all life - to which i know i am inextricably connected. so seeking to compare myself to other people has no meaning for me since we are all one. i know that what harm i do to other people, i am doing to myself. so i treat other people as i would like to be treated, and cherish the divinity in every person i meet. i am committed to acting with divine kindness (which is not quite the same as being soft and gentle all the time) and total forgiveness towards people. i am also committed to being an example to people that there is another way, beyond self interest in which truly lies freedom and peace and wholeness and wisdom. if this is your definition of altruism, so be it.

Well put. But I can and do all of those things and I think dualistically, the result is the same no matter how I choose to approach it.

working for whom? look, if everything you thought was wrong, wouldn't you want to know? and the answer 'yes i would (but everything i think is right)' is demonstrating a fear-based approach to life. it is demonstrating that you are comfy in your box and would rather live in ignorance than know truth. it's fine if you make that choice, but know there IS a choice.

Yes, there is a choice between the irrational and the rational. And rational thought benefits everyone. It isn't as if science only benefits a select few. The small pox vaccine worked on everyone, no matter how they thought.

Also, if everything I thought was wrong I would certainly want to know. But so far, the evidence suggests that the way I think and approach reality is right. And I don't "feel" any way about it.

freedom is a benefit in itself, wouldn't you say? of course there are also global benefits to raising the consciousness of humankind. you think the science you love would be possible if some people in every generation hadn't called current thinking into question and dared to look beyond what they thought they knew? no. if people were all content with the status quo we'd still be living in caves.

That's true, but because your belief system offers no tangible results--beyond thinking differently, I suspect we would still be huddled around campfires, we'd just not think dualistically about it.

I would also say that we make progress BECAUSE we think dualisitically. I sit by the fire because it is warm, and I want to be warm, not cold. And when I think fire is insufficient, the process continues until viola! central heat. This cycle will continue, as long as humans exist and Fundamentalists don't take over.

have you ever met a really holy person? i have. i interviewed someone once, a very old man, who exuded peace. it's odd, when you're in the presence of someone who changes the atmosphere around them, you can feel it. it's tangible. you can't see it or touch it, but you can feel it. if you believe the presence of car keys is more tangible than the presence of god, i can only tell you that you haven't experienced the presence of god yet.

Perhaps not.

i'd just like to clarify this. god gives a portion of his being to humans and they can embody evil (at least temporarily), but the allness of god, the god that is beyond form, the heart of god if you like, is unconditional love. god doesn't embody both good and evil. we, as humans, with a spark of the divine inside us, embody relative good and relative evil (and many shades in between). but god is unconditional love. in him there is no darkness at all. see, this is where words become so limiting. the allness of god, the pure being of god, doesn't have elements of evil at all. we make free will choices to accept evil, but in essence god isn't anything less than unconditional love and absolute truth.

Ok.

interesting. so you believe other people's (scientific) evidence, but you don't believe your own eyes? well at least you admitted that it's how you see the world, your own construct if you like, that's the barrier to you believing in god. although this in itself is progress to seeing beyond that construct even if you don't find god beyond it.

No, I don't trust my own eyes. They have deceived me before, and it will probably happen again. In your experience with the holy person before, for all you know you could have been making it all up in your head. But because it felt "right" you chose not to doubt it, and now base all your experiences based on that. But your initial assumption could be wrong.

And yes, I trust evidence based on experimentation more than I trust my own experience. It is better verified.

because they too suffer from the delusion that what they now know is all that can be known. they think god could dictate one book but say he's never allowed to dictate another. they think god has one representative and is never allowed to have another. it's a way of limiting god so he fits into their own little box. i try telling them, do you think they listen..?

We will never know all that can be known. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

no, emotions exist. they just can't be expressed accurately or proven objectively.

There is no "proof" in science. And we do have verifiable evidence that emotions exist, we just don't know what causes them--beyond what the individual describes, of course.

that's because i'm giving you in one fell swoop teachings it's taken me a year to internalise. cumbersome? nah. only in the same way a biology student would think the construction of a flower cumbersome on his first day at high school. give it a few years, the same student will eventually be able to break the flower down into its parts, see how they work together and understand it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps.

March 15, 2007

Acts 17:23
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

1 Corinthians 14:2
For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

God Winked
Acts 17:30
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
___________________________

And everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance,
as Yahweh has said, among the survivors whom Yahweh calls. (Joel 2:32)
So said the Father…

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

For it is by grace you have been saved, though faith - and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one
can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So said the Son…

Fine, but that doesn't address the point. Nobody speaks in an unknown tongue. At least two people must speak it for it to be a language, just by common sense. What the passage means is that when someone is speaking in tongues (go to a Pentacostal church some time) it is of God.

Apparently God knows not all that have lived and died have had a
chance to hear and repent of their sins.

You quotes above would suggest otherwise. John 14:6 is pretty cut and dried.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth
all men every where to repent: Acts 17:30

(Apparently no one will judged upon I never had a chance to hear…)

Yep. And yet the Aztecs still went on sacrificing. Are you saying that they heard the voice of God and ignored it? Is there any record in any other culture of god somehow giving them the commandments?

Here we see a rare wink of God to forgive those that did lack knowledge
and a chance to decide.

Goes on to say BUT NOW … but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent!!!

Yea, NOW, as in 2,000 years ago. So, for 1492 years the natives of the Americas were screwed--and then when the missionaries showed up to give them the gospel they got screwed AGAIN. Does got hate the natives of the Americas or what?

Acts 17:30
The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.
(Ps 145.8f)

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
(Ps 98.9)

And none will say 'not fair' with God's judgment... none will argue their situation is unfair.

The Bible claims that, but the Bible is not a good basis to judge what is fair and what is not.

You must think God is pretty ugly to send infants, children to hell.
He said He judges with equity.

Well, He does. Either you are saved by faith or you are not. You say so yourself. If there are loopholes, then Jesus was wrong when he said there was no way to Heaven but through him.

When Jesus was saying, "No way" did he really mean "Almost no way" or "no way for you guys, but those guys have it a little differently" or what?

I think the rational explanation is these men made wild claims without thinking it through all the way.

He also said Matthew 19:14

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

We have to know God is just and fair not evil.

In context, somebody brought a group of children up to Jesus, and the disciples told them to go away, but Jesus said, no let them come over here, and he laid his hands on them. It has nothing to do with children going to Heaven. Good try, though.

Right after that is when the kid comes up and asks Jesus how to have enternal life. The kids are still standing closeby, he didn't say, "Well, if you are that young, you have nothing to worry about" did he? Why not? It just didn't occur to him? And Jesus didn't know that there would be some question as to where infants go and not nip in the bud right there?

March 16, 2007

Moai

Isaiah 13-14 For thou hast said in thine heart,
I ...will ascend into heaven,
I ...will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I ...will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I ...will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I ...will be like the most High.
Lucifer had ...I trouble...he should have seen an optometrist.

Maybe he should have.

Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

Pride.... Is sin. Lucifer fell because of Pride.

Then He wasn't perfect. Tell me, how did imperfection get into Heaven--I mean, that is where Lucifer was, right?

1 Timothy 3:6
Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil
____

You’re leaving freewill out of the equation. God knew but; what of freewill.
So every time a child is aborted do we say God did it?
God knows which children are going to be aborted.

Yep. And He allows it. Jeremiah 1:4-5: "Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you'..."

He forms fetuses in the womb knowing they will be aborted, yet does nothing.

But He does not do it.
God knows… and freewill does what it wants.
Angelic beings as well as man were created with freewill or one third of those beings would not have followed Lucifer out of Heaven.

This is probably the best example of cognitive dissonance I have ever come across.

Lost my faith, might find it again...but might not

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