21 May 21
It's very odd that people believe that others will be punished for not believing something. Being punished for doing something bad [harming someone], I get. Even being punished for not doing something [like criminal negligence], i get that too. But the notion of being punished for not believing something, the notion of being punished - not for actions - but for thoughtcrimes - these sound like man made concept and threats.
21 May 21
@sonship saidIf you mean why do you have to believe He is alive in order to be your Lord and Savior. If Christ is dead He cannot be your Lord and Savior. And if He did not rise from the dead then He is dead.
@FMF
Oh I don't think I am "unable" to answer you.
I think saying Jesus is DEAD though is the same as saying He cannot be Lord. Saying Jesus is DEAD is saying really, if you have a need to be justified, Jesus isn't available to justify you.
Or by not believing in His resurrection you are saying God did not stand by and vindicate anything crucial Jesus said about why He came. He came to die and to rise. His dying a redemptive death and rising in a confirming resurrection is too central to His reason for being period.
Yes. Exactly. I don't believe any of this.
22 May 21
@sonship saidIf there is an airport and there is danger and there is a jet then so be it. But I don't believe Jesus is a jet waiting at an airport. I believe he is dead and I believe, one day, I will be dead too.
You have to believe that the jet is there in order to board the jet and be saved. The analogy may not be perfect. I think it is appropriate in many ways.
22 May 21
@sonship saidIt's apt that you did not address this directly to me because these 'preach to the choir' assertions are a pure waste of your time. What you personally think is "hard" or not "hard", or what you think "takes more work" or less "work" for you personally to believe in, is not evidence of anything that is relevant to me.
I think it is hard not to believe in Jesus as you read through perhaps aloud the Gospel of John. I think it takes more work to not believe then to believe in Christ.
22 May 21
@sonship saidIf then, according to your beliefs, the God you worship has not endowed me with the ability to believe in Jesus [as you say he has "somehow" done with you], why, according to your beliefs, would the God you worship punish me?
I am under the great mercy of God to have somehow been endowed with the ability to believe this Man
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22 May 21
If then, according to your beliefs, the God you worship has not endowed me with the ability to believe in Jesus [as you say he has "somehow" done with you], why, according to your beliefs, would the God you worship punish me?
The way that question is phrased it is too difficult for me to answer.
Do you have an easier question for me perhaps?
I think a good prayer for this kind of thought would be to pray -
"Lord Jesus, whether I am punished or not punished is not the most important thing. That the will of God is done, is the most important thing. I call You Lord, Lord Jesus, because I only care for the fulfillment of Your will, Your administration, Your Lordship, Your sovereignty, Your government. What Lord Jesus, You do with me is whatever You do in the accomplishing of Your will."
Though you waver in faith, how can God's heart not be touched by such a prayer?
You have a little faith. You have enough to confess "Lord Jesus". No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.
22 May 21
@sonship saidIt's a very straightforward response to this: "I am under the great mercy of God to have somehow been endowed with the ability to believe this Man".
@FMFIf then, according to your beliefs, the God you worship has not endowed me with the ability to believe in Jesus [as you say he has "somehow" done with you], why, according to your beliefs, would the God you worship punish me?
The way that question is phrased it is too difficult for me to answer.
Do you have an easier question for me perhaps?
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23 May 21
2 edits
@fmf saidThe statement was straightforward to begin with, and not only as a response to a
It's a very straightforward response to this: "I am under the great mercy of God to have somehow been endowed with the ability to believe this Man".
question.
Titus 3:5 "Not according to works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit."
This great cosmic chicken and egg paradox of how God's selection and predestination works with man's free will and responsibility has been contemplated by many for centuries. I don't think I can solve the issue tonight.
D.L. Moody said something to the effect that on the outside of the gate to eternal salvation it reads "Whosoever will". But when you step in and turn around from the inside it says "Chosen before the foundation of the world".
It is really mysterious.
But God seems so willing I encourage anyone to come to the Lord with thanks, with praise, with wanting Him and only Himself as a goal. Coming with no other motive then God Himself and with thanksgiving is effective.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Pure in heart there means not complicated but simple and single minded I think.
23 May 21
@sonship saidThanks you for taking the time to type some stuff and address it to me, but you are still not answering the question, which was:
The statement was straightforward to begin with, and not only as a response to a
question.
[b]Titus 3:5 " He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us thr ...[text shortened]... they shall see God. Pure in heart there means not complicated but simple and single minded I think.
If, according to your beliefs, the God you worship has not endowed me with the ability to believe in Jesus [as you say he has "somehow" done with you], why, according to your beliefs, would the God you worship punish me?
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23 May 21
@FMF
I gave you my answer which you said was straightforward. Now you say you got no answer.
Was my reply straightforward or was it no answer at all? Which are you going with?
A question for you:
When you think of God is the ONLY matter that occupies any consideration about this totally one about punishment and nothing else?
23 May 21
@sonship saidWhen I think of the possibility of a creator being, the things that occupy my consideration, so to speak, are things like the laws of nature [which I think are the potentially the only information we have about the creator being, if there is one] and human consciousness which I also think is the other bit of evidence that is at least plausible.
When you think of God is the ONLY matter that occupies any consideration about this totally one about punishment and nothing else?
When I consider the God figure you describe, what I see is grotesque: this "perfect morality" ~ i.e. eternal torture in burning flames for not being a believer, the dark demented heart of your philosophy ~ the one that you believe in, I find to be merely a morally incoherent - and rather ludicrous - religious dogma.
I cannot see any credible link between the universe and human consciousness and the ideology that you propagate, which seems to me to be the product of depraved human imaginings.
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23 May 21
1 edit
When I think of the possibility of a creator being, the things that occupy my consideration, so to speak, are things like the laws of nature [which I think are the potentially the only information we have about the creator being, if there is one] and human consciousness which I also think is the other bit of evidence that is at least plausible.
For a period of time I saw no connection between what I do, what I OUGHT to do and the laws governing nature. There was a disconnect. One had nothing to do with the other. Actually it was a Jewish friend (not a Christian) who somehow informed me of the connection as if there were two sides of the same matter.
The authority of the Creator as to natural laws and His authority in the realm of moral consciousness. I can not separate these two aspects.
Others are reading FMF. So don't think I reply only for you. But Psalm 94:4 I think expresses this nicely and consicsely.
"He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
And He who formed the eye, does He not see?
He who disciplines the nations, He who teaches man knowledge, does He not reprove? "
A Deist concept of a powerful all-knowing Creator I no longer can entertain seriously.
I think matter did not precede mind either.
Rather I think mind preceded matter.
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23 May 21
1 edit
When I consider the God figure you describe, what I see is grotesque: this "perfect morality" ~ i.e. eternal torture in burning flames for not being a believer, the dark demented heart of your philosophy ~ the one that you believe in, I find to be merely a morally incoherent - and rather ludicrous - religious dogma.
I think this is probably because you do not have any appreciation of Who it was who came to earth, suffered and died under man's torture and God's judgment on behalf of the actual guilty parties.
The extent to which this Creator gave up what He had and took on what He did not deserve in the God-man Jesus Christ is totally not appreciated or believed by you.
That God could go so far and no farther to save us from the eternal perfection which He refuses to give up, is not seen by you.
I see the horrendous prospect of a final judgment not less then other men.
But I see also the incarnation, life , death, and resurrection of Christ as God reconciling the world to Himself. I see God as loving so much as to go so far that His perfection is upheld sacrificially yet not the obliteration of the sinful.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself not accounting their sins to them. And to those who accept and believe in this One He has become the merit upon which they can stand before God eternally.
"Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)
As a believer I have gone from one constituted with sin and sinning to one who has been made the very righteousness of God in Christ. That is quite a u-turn. That is quite a reversal. And I do not think any human imagination could concoct such a plan of salvation. Let alone imagine up the character and life of Jesus Christ.
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23 May 21
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I cannot see any credible link between the universe and human consciousness and the ideology that you propagate, which seems to me to be the product of depraved human imaginings.
You may imagine that Jesus is depraved. But His life and words are there in history as the elephant in the living room. My faith is based on all of what Jesus Christ was and said and accomplished.
You see in the Bible depravity in God.
I see a gloriously good Son of God come to save us. And He referred to His Father as "Righteous Father". He had more qualification to point out depravity in God in any sense if He knew of any. He did not. And even in spite of the prospect of eternal damnation to those unreconciled, He spoke of the Righteous Father.
"Righteous Father, though the world has not known You, yet I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me. And I have made Your name known to them and will yet make it known . . . " (John 17:25,26a)