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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Jun 19, 2006 - 02:02pm PT
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yes but you keep assuming the equation Christianity = biblical doctrine. We all know that is not always right and so did TJ
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Jun 19, 2006 - 03:34pm PT
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It is true that a lot of death-bed conversions have been used to sanitize and rationalize a lot of sins committed when the now repentent convert still felt he was going to live forever. The church, though, has always extracted a high price in cash from the reformed sinner-convert before issuing an exemption from eternal punishment. That's why the Church gets so rich feeding on sin. But if you're like AH and believe you're already a new incarnation of Jesus driving the money-lenders (i.e. Jews) from the Temple with whips and scourges, how in the world are you going to convert to any religion at the end of your "mission"? After Schopenhauer it has become hard to separate the sane from the insane. Watch out for those idealists! A lot of problems begin when you wake up one morning and decide to perpetuate your ego in eternity. Better go back to bed and take a long nap.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Jun 19, 2006 - 03:52pm PT
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UncleDoug
For one I think it should be pointed out that no religious belief system is without a bona-fide spiritual force behind it especially paganism. The bible acknowledges this up and down in the New Testament. The ridicule of those who would profess to believe in the paganism of ancient Rome is more of a cultural thing than it is something the bible would truly support. Blame intolerant attitudes for that one; I believe Jesus would frown. Like Smidogg, Jesus had a problem primarily with haughty religious people, me too. I can take you on a trip to Africa or Central/South America where animism is the most common religion and witch doctors are in every city, town and village. Would you ridicule them? Many missionaries mingle with them every day to educate them and teach them about God. Ridicule is not on the agenda.
I guess the real question is how to authenticate the spiritual truths of the bible. This is a tricky one. I will say this. No one can know the Son unless the Father enables him. What this means is another man cannot enable you to understand spiritual truth. Only God can do that. BTW, spirituality knowledge and spiritual truth are not the same. All believers can do is explain what they understand and have experienced and the rest is up to God. Sometimes people forget to leave it up to God and start doing things that ultimately annoy people or even go as far as making heads roll, which is obviously not God's will. I have a personal testimony (some of which I’ve shared here before) that may or may not reveal anything to you. I can spout spiritual truth left and right but that doesn’t mean you’ll understand. This is true even if you earnestly seek answers from someone such as me.
There were twelve guys with a testimony who died a long time ago. They wrote some amazing stuff. They said they knew a Jewish teacher who explained over and over that he was the predicted Messiah in the scriptures. He said he would die and come back and then go to the father and shortly after that would send his spirit to live in them and guide them into all truth. These twelve men said to the religious leaders of the day “We saw him! He came back from the dead! And now he’s in heaven with the father on the throne.” The Religious leaders had an immediate problem. They couldn’t find the body of the man they spoke of, even though it was protected by Roman soldiers. How could a bunch of peasants outwit the whole lot of em and overpower a bunch of Imperial solders to boot? As a result the 12 men were chased out of town and persecuted by the religious leaders. The Romans eventually got around to ransacking the whole place because Nero hated the Jews. He then, not knowing or caring much for the Christians either persecuted them as well, thinking they were more or less Jews. Meanwhile these 12 men sought neither riches nor fame. All they did was repeat what they were told and what they saw. They were faithful to what they experienced and would not keep quiet about it. To stop the persecution all they had to do was confess that this guy who claimed to be the Messiah really wasn’t. If they said, “Nah, he didn’t do all that stuff” they would have been spared. But they never did that. They died horrible deaths instead.
Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword in Ethiopia. Mark died in Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets. Luke was hung upon an olive tree in Greece. John was put in a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward branded at Patmos. Peter was crucified upside down at Rome. James, the older, was beheaded at Jerusalem. James, the younger, was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a club. Bartholomew was flayed alive. Andrew was bound to a cross, while he preached to his persecutors until he died. Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies. Jude was shot to death with arrows. Matthew was first stoned and then beheaded. Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica. The Emperor Nero in Rome finally beheaded Paul, after various tortures, persecutions and many years in prison.
Does this prove the bible stories true about Jesus? No, but it’s getting pretty darn interesting don’t you think? This much I can tell you, if you read the bible God will speak to you. I don’t mean a couple verses. I mean a good portion of it. You’ll have to give it a good effort if you’re going to test to see what I say is true or not. What is there to loose in that? If you ever get around to it start with John, work your way to the end and start back up in the beginning working your way back to John. I know it’s a lot to suggest but I can’t help it. I know there’s gold in them tharr hills, I’ve seen it. It’s free for those who seek and it’s unlimited in supply. Why in the world would anyone keep quite about something like that?
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Jun 19, 2006 - 05:04pm PT
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LEB,
By authority I meant authenticity and not a person like a priest or religious leader. So in this case I suppose your authority is somewhere in the courses you mentioned. And blind allegiance is not something I would suggest to anyone. How do you know what you’re getting into? I know Christianity seems to be based on blind faith but it’s not. God confirms things for those who exercise their faith. The crux is that it’s much easier to see the proof with 20/20 hindsight. I can see God in my life with 20/20 hindsight and that’s why it’s easy for me to confess what I do. I understand why you don’t share the same perspective. And I still struggle to believe him on many things even now… life is from faith to faith.
“It boils down to an issue of integrity and conviction in one's priciples.”
YES, now that one you can bank on. Any time you don’t live up to what you are certain is right, you’re failing to be good.
“The world is filled with many holy and spiritual persons and they are NOT all Christians.”
Wrong. No man can boast to be more holy than the next, which is why the headship of the church in the Pope is not good biblical doctrine. Same reason that the Dali Lama is not a true god.
About pride, I agree with you to a point. God opposes the proud but upholds the humble. One must be humble to be a true believer. Christians DON’T have then inside track. No man does. Only God does. If you think you have a track to heaven you’re wrong and arrogant. There is a way to a man he feels is right but will ultimately lead to destruction.
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cintune
climber
Penn's Woods
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Jun 19, 2006 - 06:01pm PT
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"The Greeks, a certain scholar has told me, considered that myths are the activities of the Daimons, and that the Daimons shape our characters and our lives. I have often had the fancy that there is some one myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought." - W.B. Yeats
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Ouch!
climber
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Jun 19, 2006 - 06:33pm PT
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Proselytizing and preaching by any other name. Lots of that here.
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the Fet
climber
Earth
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Jun 19, 2006 - 07:00pm PT
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I guess the joke should have been titled "Top 10 Signs You are a Hypocritical Fundamentalist Christian".
It seems people have a tendency to lump everyone on one extreme side of the argument or the other, e.g. some conservatives who label everyone who doesn't agree with them liberal.
The problem is extremists. Muslims who kill innocents for their cause. Christians who bomb abortion clinics. People who let their beliefs blind them instead of making their own judgements about right and wrong, good and evil.
I agree that the Bible has had good influences, but to say our constitution is based on it, is well off-base. Many of those values are pre-historic. Think of the Laws of Babylon. They influenced and pre-date the Bible. Think of the Magna carta, very influential on the constitution. Freedom dates back millions of years. As soon as 1 person oppressed another, freedom was born.
We should be very happy our founding fathers created this a secular nation no matter what your beliefs. No matter what state religion is chosen it invites all kinds of negative ramifications. We are a great country because we don't have state religion.
I understand though how people put their religous beliefs ahead of American ideals. This is just a country we live in, religion can be so much more to a lot of people. However I believe in those American ideals and freedoms more than religous ones because I agree with them and think they are based on truth, justice, and pragmatic notions that make life better for all people.
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mingleefu
climber
Champaign, IL --> Denver, CO
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Jun 19, 2006 - 09:34pm PT
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LEB wrote, "I do think it is better to address fewer points per post...[snip]"
Duly noted. I came across the thread relatively late in its life and tried to reply to a few key points, which quickly became Many key points. I had intendended to thin it out a bit, but I was getting kicked out of the library.
Also, I'm actually not working towards the clergy. Besides Clergy being a distinctly Catholic hierarchy (I'm of the protestant strain), I'm not looking to go into full time ministry. I wholely support it and those who are in it, but I personally don't want to get mixed up and distracted in the politics of running a church, or otherwise. I'm at the seminary for personal growth, working towards becoming a college professor.
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cintune
climber
Penn's Woods
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Jun 19, 2006 - 10:45pm PT
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"There is no purpose. We do whatever we do. You either blow your brains out or get on with something." - Roger Waters
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Mountain Man
Trad climber
Outer space
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Jun 20, 2006 - 12:51am PT
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We never needed a state religion, but the efforts of the left to drive a wedge between society and God has been effected by certain judges. It has gotten crazy. The schools can teach elementary school kids fisting and other delights, but the kids can't have a prayer group after school.
IMHO, this is one of the issues (abortion being another) that has really motivated the sleeping majority, and why Democrats currently are out of power in all branches of government.
However they do control the schools, so the fight is far from over, nor is the outcome certain
As to the assertion that humans are descended from lower life forms. What exactly is the evidence of that? Are there fossils that show all the random mutations that didn't make it in our evolutionary past? There were worms and suddenly the Cambrian revolution came and all the phyla and species were here. Not exactly Darwinian theory.
The truth should not bother a true Christian. God is capable of everything, including evolution. But where in the fossil record is there evidence of evolution? I'd like to know.
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Ouch!
climber
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Jun 20, 2006 - 12:59am PT
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"drive a wedge between society and God"
Make that between Fundy Theocracy and The Republic.
You people sure have a low opinion of God. You make him sound like a child who needs constant defending. Is he really that impotent?
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Ben Wah
Social climber
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Jun 20, 2006 - 01:31am PT
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There are way too many questions raised here that I have no time to answer, but LEB clamors for an answer on the Hitler question: Could there have been redemption for Hitler?
The answer is, of course, if we are to believe the Bible (and anyone who claims to be a born-again Christian must do so or be a liar), that if Hitler had felt, in the last ten seconds of his life, the weight of his sin and his unworthiness to stand before a holy God, and had truly repented and begged God to forgive him and make him a new creature, he would have been saved. If Jesus' sacrifice would have been insufficient to cover even the sins of this horribly wicked sinner, then His sacrifice would not have been enough; it would not have been the perfect work that it was. Hitler's persecution and slaughter of the Jews was completely unbiblical, depraved, and sinful; they remain to this day God's chosen people, and as Christians we have the promise which He made to Abraham: "I will bless them that bless you and curse them that curse you." I believe this gives us who were not born Jewish a responsibility to bless them, and not curse, at least if we would have God's blessing. It is very probable that Hitler died without God's blessing. By the way, salvation is not achieved by reciting a magic formula, it is given to you when you, abandoning the pride and arrogance that say "I'm not bad, and I certainly don't think I deserve to be punished for anything," acknowledge that you are, in fact, a sinner in need of God's grace, and cry out to him from your heart to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.
Many non-believers here rail against the "Fundamentalist Party Line" That is good; the organized church has historically twisted the Scriptures to achieve their own worldly ends, forbidden the reading of the Scriptures in fear that people would see their wrong and call them out, and killed millions of people whom they were commanded rather to love. But the Bible commands us, when we hear preaching, when we hear dogma, when we hear ideas, to search through the Scriptures and see for ourselves what they say. This is what even you, LEB, would have to call 'using your brain.' Did something the preacher say contradict what the Bible says? Then the preacher is wrong. And it has been my experience that many, many preachers are wrong.
As for Brownie points (and this is the last issue I will address here), there is an huge misconception about that. We do God's will because we love Him, because of what he did for us. Once we are God's children (which happens when we are born again, not of flesh, but of the Spirit), it is our duty to do His will, ("Know ye not that ye are bought with a price, and you are not your own?") and His will is not grievous. Anyone who works for Brownie points I fear will find himself reproved. True there is a certain amount of crowns each person will be given, and the Bible teaches that we will cast our crown's at Jesus' feet. But I hear people say, "boy, will I be ashamed if I have less crowns than anyone else to cast." I think they misunderstand the whole idea. We will not cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus so that he can say, "hey, you rule, dude, you've got three more crowns than that other guy," no. I believe than when we come into the presence of Jesus on His throne, we will see that we are there on His merit alone, and that the crowns of glory belong really to Him, and in acknowledgement of that we will say, "I am not worthy to bear this crown, for I did nothing of myself, but it was Christ who did it all, Oh God, these crowns are yours by right!"
Ah, LEB, I hope that you will indeed use your brain, and read the Scriptures for yourself, rather than take what self-serving, wicked man tells you is in them for granted, and thus never know the joy of letting God speak to you through His Holy Word.
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Ben Wah
Social climber
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Jun 20, 2006 - 01:45am PT
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Thanks, Jody. I expect yours might well be the only good review of my posting. Lets see...
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 20, 2006 - 03:06am PT
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Ben wrote
"... if we are to believe the Bible (and anyone who claims to be a born-again Christian must do so or be a liar..."
Too big an assumption there Ben. Being born again is a spiritual renewal that neither depends on the text of a book, nor accepting it as some perfect revelation. Most Christians don't follow the hundreds of rules contained in the Bible and Jesus himself interpreted (some might say contradicted) biblical injuctions pretty liberally.
As you said later, religion has twisted scripture, which was compiled in 300 ad under political direction. The recent trend of considering the Bible the perfect and flawless word of God is a pretty recent trend, in my opinion, a post-reformation response to the Catholic church's "infallible" pope and Islam's claims for the Koran.
Jesus spoke of "having ears to hear" The Kingdom of Heaven is within. Idolotry of a book is leading people astray these days. Even if the book was perfect, our imperfect understanding would be a liability. Unfortunately folks who think they understand the cryptic book of Revelations are ready to plunge us into war and chaos.
Peace
Karl
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Jun 20, 2006 - 03:29am PT
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No, no, no. Number one really is . . .
#1 You actually worship and have voted into office (through fraudulent means mind you) the Anti-Christ and you don't even realize it.
You profess to see the light, but you are blind.
---------------------------------------------------
So we now have the Bush Crime Family and the Neo-cons to contend with, and the world is going to hell in a hand basket as a result.
So when my family and I along with my friends, whom all think the same, are gathered-up and hauled off to concentration camps under this fascist regime will you then awake?
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jun 20, 2006 - 10:44am PT
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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819
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Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
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Jun 20, 2006 - 11:48am PT
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This is the "story" you are buying?
that's just it Lois, no one really 'buys it'. that's why it has to be 'sold' so aggressively.
You people sure have a low opinion of God. You make him sound like a child who needs constant defending. Is he really that impotent?
come on Ouch!, after a good week of universe building, it's no wonder he took a few shortcuts and left us with some assembly required. i'm sure he didn't expect that others would try to finish the job with instructions in the 'wrong' language.
maybe a few pictures would have helped.....
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Jun 20, 2006 - 12:05pm PT
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Sorry LEB, I was addressing your questions and statements directed toward me. Plus work is keeping me busy so I don’t have the time to adequately chime in on everything.
Nice comments Karl, being that I don’t think you’re a big bible reader, not that I wholey agree but very well thought out. Maybe I’ll chase those down later.
And Ben, I agree with you too. Now you have a whopping two supporters! Read my comments and see if you agree. This was written to LEB but it counts.
Regarding Hitler, first off we could play the “what if” game all day. We know that Hitler did not repent and he did not have faith in anything or anyone but himself. Let’s face it though there are many other people we can blame for the Holocaust. Hitler walked in the footsteps of bigger and smarter men who promoted utter hatred of Jews and Slavs and a pure contempt for democracy and humanism. I personally believe that WWII would have happened with or without him. Germany was on a wild and war ridden ride ever since Prussia defeated France. It was said that Prussia was not a state with an army but an army with a state. Nazi Germany was merely a continuation of what was already there.
Now I’m not exonerating Hitler in any way. You know my background. You know I grew up in the Jewish community. The entirety of my grandfather’s extended family save two men and much of my grandmother’s perished in the hands of the Nazis. I started learning about the Holocaust as early as the 2nd grade. Hitler and Nazi Germany were the vilest and most disgusting chapters in history from my perspective (actually from a Jewish perspective Haman may be worse but I won’t get into that). I too wondered how a man like that could go through the process of salvation the way the Christians explain it. It’s the classic post WWII question and every Jew’s favorite rhetorical objection to the call for salvation through Jesus. My own mother asked me the same thing just a few months ago.
I don’t know if I have a satisfactory answer but I’ll start with a few facts. First off God has decided to forgive our sins, every single one of them. No matter what you’ve done God is ready to forgive. God is a better savior than you are a sinner and you can’t out sin his grace. That said there are a few guidelines. If we don’t forgive he won’t forgive. And there’s one sin God won’t forgive which is grieving the Holy Spirit (to put it plainly that is rejecting the Gospel of the Messiah to your utter death). It is the job of the Holy Spirit to deliver the message of the Gospel, not man, and if you tell him he’s wrong you grieve him. He’s not mad, he’s inconsolably sad.
Secondly repentance must precede faith. One must consciously change their heart and mind and willfully attempt (successfully or not) to reverse their bad actions before they can have faith. A humble attitude is one sign of repentance, but only you and God know if you have truly done this, it’s hidden to everyone else. In fact the evidence may be elusive even to oneself. This is a spiritual truth and cannot be circumvented. Arrogance and wickedness will harden ones heart making them blind to the process and impossible to walk through. Pharaoh in Exodus is a perfect example of this; Hitler was one in the same.
Thirdly, all men have fallen short of godliness. Ultimately this means that all men are guilty. Just because someone dies and unjust death in the hand of evil doesn’t give them a ticket to heaven, that is false martyrdom. Even though few Holocaust victims deserved what they got they still may have died guilty had they sought not the forgiveness of God in the grace bestowed through his son. Truly they sought God but if they rejected the son they rejected the father as well. Think about it, if you send your son the store to buy a gallon of milk and they turned him away because they reject his rights to buy wouldn’t you be rejected as well?
I’ve read much of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a monster book but well written. It’s probably the most complete account of Nazi Germany written in English and certainly one of the most important historical documents in the aftermath of WWII. It gives an account of Hitler’s last will and testament dictated in his last hour. If you read it you’ll be confident that Hitler was neither humble nor repentant and certainly without faith. He out did Judas Iscariot. He was proud of what he did and took full responsibility like a badge of honor. He honors himself in making the most difficult decisions a man has ever made. He basically frosted the cake he’d been baking for 30 years. It was the perfect epitaph for his legacy. Now you tell me if that sounds like he had faith in Jesus.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jun 20, 2006 - 12:34pm PT
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He wrote: "Ultimately this means that all men are guilty."
This is a very shame-based take on the issue. You´re basically saying that unless you are perfect, you are guilty. Since only God is perfect, you´ll never get all the way there, hence you´re seting yourself up to always fail. AA recognized the problem with this angle and resolved it with the following motto (which avoided the trap of perpetual and needless guilt): "Progress, not perfection."
JL
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Ben Wah
Social climber
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Jun 20, 2006 - 12:59pm PT
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Looks like Jay and I will leapfrog answers at you here for a spell, LEB.
Let me see, "Why would a merciful God allow Hitler (whom I don't think got off the hook; I believe there is probably a hotter place in Hell reserved for him. The point is, God's grace would have been sufficient even for him) to kill millions of innocent Jews. This will be difficult without my magic "God is mysterious" card, but let's give it a shot.
All through Jewish history, the Jews have suffered persecution. They underwent slavery in Egypt, several Babylonian captivities, harassment by the Midianites, the Philistines, the Roman Empire. In fact the entire Old Testament is a story of the Jews botching the sequence and being punished for it by God. Why would God so punish His chosen people? Because He loves them ("Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth betimes"). Whenever they turned away from following Him to enquire after Baal or the gods of the Amorites, or Ashdod or any of the abominations of the heathens, God punished them, seeking to bring them back to Himself. It is the same with my daughter. I love her more than I ever imagined possible, yet when she rebels and disobeys I spank her. She knows I love her, and one day she'll understand (like I did as well) that the punishment was administered in love. I cannot explain why God allowed the Holocaust without playing the forbidden card, but I know that God does all things well, and to say that something cannot be true because our feeble minds do not understand it is childish. Do you understand the process of celestial navigation? Can you take a sextant shot of a star and reduce that number to another number that tells you where you are? no? Then there's no way its possible, becuase you don't understand it! "I've thought about it fot ten minutes, and I can't figure it out, so it must be fallacious!" What kind of God would we have if His ways were searchable to us? If our tiny heads could understand all His workings, we would be as smart as Him, and then what?
As for the crowns, I don't think you read my post carefully. Jesus will NOT count how many crowns we cast before him and be more or less pleased with us because of the amount. Since we know that we are going to cast all the crown we accrue at the feet of Jesus, I don't even know why we're going to get them. Perhaps we're told of them just to see if people will get the point of acknowledging that it was all God's grace and nothing we ourselves did. And lots of people don't get that.
If Mother Theresa repented of her sins and asked God for His forgiveness, then she'll be in Heaven. If she did not, then all her good deeds are for nothing. God says that all of our own righteousnesses are as filthy rags; no matter how good a person may be all his life, God says he is a filthy, unregenerate sinner and only through the blood of Jesus can he be saved.
Before I close this, let me say, lest anyone reading the above think otherwise, that I think the slaughter of the Jews was abominable, horrible, and wicked. Why God allows the wicked to prosper for a season is far beyond me, and I will not say of anyone who was murdered, "oh, they deserved it"-that is not my place; it is not my call to make. My command is to love all men as I love myself, and that is the central command to us of the entire Bible.
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