Can Someone Explain This To Me Please?

LastAttempt

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I was raised in a devout Christian household. I believed. I prayed. I had faith. I was also very young. Later, once I had gained a more sophisticated intellect, I began to notice that what I believe did not match up with what I was seeing every day, and what I knew of human history (horrible and disgusting).

Everyone seems to agree on the premise that God loves us, and desires to be with us forever. But in order to be with him, you have to go through a pass/fail test called life. Consider all the people throughout history who have lived and died. It’s a number that completely dwarfs the number of people alive at present, more on that later. Now consider how many of those people likely passed the test. Keep in mind that God murdered entire cities for doing so poorly on the test he didn’t even wait until they died to send them to forever-hell (not just non-existence like the time before birth, but eternal punishment for a finite life). I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people who have lived and died here did NOT pass the test for one reason or another. After all, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle etc etc…

Setting that aside for a moment, consider the fact that the majority of people alive at the moment are not Christians. God must be very disappointed (again…more) because Christianity, while being a major world religion, is totally eclipsed by the other major religions, population-wise. That isn’t even counting the atheists and the I’m-not-sures. So, God doesn’t get what he wants? Why? Because free-will is more important? Seriously, God’s success rate looks very, very low – like an idea that appears good in theory but fails in execution. He even had to drown ALL of us at one point because things were going so badly. This is the etch-a-sketch version of creation. This is the absent watch-maker which, sadly, makes more sense to me every day. People say they have experienced the hand of God in their lives, but all I see is coincidence. It’s a thing, guys. It happens.

Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. God already created a cadre of angels, seemingly on a ranking system since Lucifer was the main dude in charge. But Lucifer, having intimate knowledge of God’s omniscience and power, figured he could challenge God and win? Wait, what? Was he stupid? How am I supposed to believe that? And to make matters worse, ONE THIRD of God’s soldiers followed Lucifer? So even within God’s own angels he has a failing grade: 66.6% is an F+. If God is so awesome (in the real context of that word) why would his creations rebel? Because free-will? That makes NO sense to me. I would happily give up free will to get out of this place (earth).

To sum up: God created lots of angels, then 33% of them left, figuring they could beat God. Then God created an unthinkable number of human beings for the specific purpose of populating hell forever, as punishment for their finite lives. He knew what he was doing and what would happen. This constitutes the vast majority of the entire human race, living and dead, which really looks like failure (or, at the very least not love) to me. And lastly, our only guide comes in the form of an ancient book, written by ancient people in antiquated languages (classical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) which have NO PUNCTUATION, VERB TENSE OR EVEN SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. In Greek, you can’t tell the difference between

God is now here

And

God is nowhere

Because what you're looking at is Godisnowhere. Or maybe it's "God I Snow Here". You don't know.

There’s a reason why “It’s all Greek to me” is an expression. The result: A crazy long book we have no hope of understanding unless we are fluent in classical Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and Greek, and can time-travel in order to understand the social context of all these documents when they were written. The book is so vague and open to misinterpretation it seems unlikely anyone can decipher its original meaning. That’s probably why there’s 150 different flavors of Christianity. And furthermore, within this document, he calls us sheep. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around sheep, but they are the dumbest things ever to walk the earth. Astoundingly stupid. How could us sheep ever decipher the Bible in any meaningful way? If God is Love, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and believe me, I’m looking.

I really want to believe like I did before, but too many things just make no sense to me. Baaaaaaa.
 

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Baaaaaaa.
A lot to address in your lengthy first post, but I just want to say you're wrong about sheep. They flock together for defensive purposes. According to scientists and people who own sheep, they're very intelligent. Look it up.
 
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ChangesForRachel

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Grace and peace to you.

LastAttempt, I believe that you are experiencing trials in faith. I pray that you will experience God's love to the fullest.

Read the Bible with the Passion Translation. It is much easier to understand. King James version is very difficult to understand. Language has changed.

God does love you, and he is knocking on your door. All you have to do is let him in.

I recommend watching Dan Mohler or Todd White videos on YouTube. They can inspire you and help you with your identity issues.

YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD! God loves you very much. He might be speaking to you, but you aren't listening. Be still. And wait expectantly.
 
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I was raised in a devout Christian household. I believed. I prayed. I had faith. I was also very young. Later, once I had gained a more sophisticated intellect, I began to notice that what I believe did not match up with what I was seeing every day, and what I knew of human history (horrible and disgusting).

Everyone seems to agree on the premise that God loves us, and desires to be with us forever. But in order to be with him, you have to go through a pass/fail test called life. Consider all the people throughout history who have lived and died. It’s a number that completely dwarfs the number of people alive at present, more on that later. Now consider how many of those people likely passed the test. Keep in mind that God murdered entire cities for doing so poorly on the test he didn’t even wait until they died to send them to forever-hell (not just non-existence like the time before birth, but eternal punishment for a finite life). I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people who have lived and died here did NOT pass the test for one reason or another. After all, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle etc etc…

Setting that aside for a moment, consider the fact that the majority of people alive at the moment are not Christians. God must be very disappointed (again…more) because Christianity, while being a major world religion, is totally eclipsed by the other major religions, population-wise. That isn’t even counting the atheists and the I’m-not-sures. So, God doesn’t get what he wants? Why? Because free-will is more important? Seriously, God’s success rate looks very, very low – like an idea that appears good in theory but fails in execution. He even had to drown ALL of us at one point because things were going so badly. This is the etch-a-sketch version of creation. This is the absent watch-maker which, sadly, makes more sense to me every day. People say they have experienced the hand of God in their lives, but all I see is coincidence. It’s a thing, guys. It happens.

Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. God already created a cadre of angels, seemingly on a ranking system since Lucifer was the main dude in charge. But Lucifer, having intimate knowledge of God’s omniscience and power, figured he could challenge God and win? Wait, what? Was he stupid? How am I supposed to believe that? And to make matters worse, ONE THIRD of God’s soldiers followed Lucifer? So even within God’s own angels he has a failing grade: 66.6% is an F+. If God is so awesome (in the real context of that word) why would his creations rebel? Because free-will? That makes NO sense to me. I would happily give up free will to get out of this place (earth).

To sum up: God created lots of angels, then 33% of them left, figuring they could beat God. Then God created an unthinkable number of human beings for the specific purpose of populating hell forever, as punishment for their finite lives. He knew what he was doing and what would happen. This constitutes the vast majority of the entire human race, living and dead, which really looks like failure (or, at the very least not love) to me. And lastly, our only guide comes in the form of an ancient book, written by ancient people in antiquated languages (classical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) which have NO PUNCTUATION, VERB TENSE OR EVEN SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. In Greek, you can’t tell the difference between

God is now here

And

God is nowhere

Because what you're looking at is Godisnowhere. Or maybe it's "God I Snow Here". You don't know.

There’s a reason why “It’s all Greek to me” is an expression. The result: A crazy long book we have no hope of understanding unless we are fluent in classical Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and Greek, and can time-travel in order to understand the social context of all these documents when they were written. The book is so vague and open to misinterpretation it seems unlikely anyone can decipher its original meaning. That’s probably why there’s 150 different flavors of Christianity. And furthermore, within this document, he calls us sheep. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around sheep, but they are the dumbest things ever to walk the earth. Astoundingly stupid. How could us sheep ever decipher the Bible in any meaningful way? If God is Love, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and believe me, I’m looking.

I really want to believe like I did before, but too many things just make no sense to me. Baaaaaaa.
Love only exists if there is free will. That is the explanation. The rational mind can't comprehend Love. It is not learned by someone informing someone else. It is not even learned by studying Scripture. It is learned by direct contact of a person with the Spirit of God.

You have many, many thoughts and impressions which arise within your mind which are casting long shadows of strong doubt about the existence of God. Do you suppose that it's mostly you who have such thoughts? Could such thoughts and impressions also present themselves to a lot of other people? Do you think that these impressions and ideas about earthly reality are coming merely from within your own mind? Have you ever considered the possibility that an intelligent, malevolent spirit or even several such spirits may be shouting these things into your soul, enticing you to embrace faithlessness so that you may never come to know God? God is known only through grace, which becomes the gift of those who repent of sin because of their faith in His gift of salvation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, by which we receive Eternal Life in knowing our inexhaustible God.

What's astoundingly stupid is us, when we forget that God is. I have done this as well.
 
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This may make absolutely no sense to you, but I'll try anyway:

The center of being a Christian is a personal relationship with Christ. Everything else is history, and detail, and wisdom (way beyond human wisdom).

Christianity does not conflict with science, but many Christians believe it does, so it's probably very confusing to you. I have a foot in both "camps", and have had almost my whole life. My (scientifically literate) family greatly helped my understanding in this respect.

Your "test" is not testing for behavior, but faith.
How can you have faith in (or a relationship with) someone you can't see and that you question whether they even exist?

By experience.

Begin with prayer.
Not formal ritualistic prayers, or King James English,
just a conversation; lots of questions, lots of honesty,
lots of detail about your doubts (like here).

Don't expect Charleton Heston to speak from the sky,
but listen in your mind and heart for answers.
 
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Innerfire89

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God ordains everything, even sins, according to his purpose, not to say that God created the sin though.
Everyone fails the test, if the test is what I think it is. All people are condemned sinners, yet some are per chosen for salvation, others are left to their due judgment.

Not every denomination is truly Christian, some are deceived by false teachers and they only see in the bible what they were taught. Many times simple contex is ignored, making more interpretations. And of course many are spiritual blind. But there truly isn't much room for dissagrement when scripture is read correctly, which can be done with just an English translation.
The Gospel can be understood by anyone.
We're called sheep because we follow the Shepard, Jesus Christ. You took the comparison too far.

I don't think your really here to find truth to be honest, I think your here to voice your disbelief as if it would harm someone else's faith. But either way I hope learn God's truth and come to faith and repentance.
 
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Micah888

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I really want to believe like I did before, but too many things just make no sense to me.
The only thing which should concern you is whether Christ died for your sins (according to the Scriptures), and rose again the third day for your justification (according to the Scriptures). You can hand over everything else to God.
 
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ToBeLoved

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I was raised in a devout Christian household. I believed. I prayed. I had faith. I was also very young. Later, once I had gained a more sophisticated intellect, I began to notice that what I believe did not match up with what I was seeing every day, and what I knew of human history (horrible and disgusting).

Everyone seems to agree on the premise that God loves us, and desires to be with us forever. But in order to be with him, you have to go through a pass/fail test called life. Consider all the people throughout history who have lived and died. It’s a number that completely dwarfs the number of people alive at present, more on that later. Now consider how many of those people likely passed the test. Keep in mind that God murdered entire cities for doing so poorly on the test he didn’t even wait until they died to send them to forever-hell (not just non-existence like the time before birth, but eternal punishment for a finite life). I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people who have lived and died here did NOT pass the test for one reason or another. After all, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle etc etc…

Setting that aside for a moment, consider the fact that the majority of people alive at the moment are not Christians. God must be very disappointed (again…more) because Christianity, while being a major world religion, is totally eclipsed by the other major religions, population-wise. That isn’t even counting the atheists and the I’m-not-sures. So, God doesn’t get what he wants? Why? Because free-will is more important? Seriously, God’s success rate looks very, very low – like an idea that appears good in theory but fails in execution. He even had to drown ALL of us at one point because things were going so badly. This is the etch-a-sketch version of creation. This is the absent watch-maker which, sadly, makes more sense to me every day. People say they have experienced the hand of God in their lives, but all I see is coincidence. It’s a thing, guys. It happens.

Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. God already created a cadre of angels, seemingly on a ranking system since Lucifer was the main dude in charge. But Lucifer, having intimate knowledge of God’s omniscience and power, figured he could challenge God and win? Wait, what? Was he stupid? How am I supposed to believe that? And to make matters worse, ONE THIRD of God’s soldiers followed Lucifer? So even within God’s own angels he has a failing grade: 66.6% is an F+. If God is so awesome (in the real context of that word) why would his creations rebel? Because free-will? That makes NO sense to me. I would happily give up free will to get out of this place (earth).

To sum up: God created lots of angels, then 33% of them left, figuring they could beat God. Then God created an unthinkable number of human beings for the specific purpose of populating hell forever, as punishment for their finite lives. He knew what he was doing and what would happen. This constitutes the vast majority of the entire human race, living and dead, which really looks like failure (or, at the very least not love) to me. And lastly, our only guide comes in the form of an ancient book, written by ancient people in antiquated languages (classical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) which have NO PUNCTUATION, VERB TENSE OR EVEN SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. In Greek, you can’t tell the difference between

God is now here

And

God is nowhere

Because what you're looking at is Godisnowhere. Or maybe it's "God I Snow Here". You don't know.

There’s a reason why “It’s all Greek to me” is an expression. The result: A crazy long book we have no hope of understanding unless we are fluent in classical Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and Greek, and can time-travel in order to understand the social context of all these documents when they were written. The book is so vague and open to misinterpretation it seems unlikely anyone can decipher its original meaning. That’s probably why there’s 150 different flavors of Christianity. And furthermore, within this document, he calls us sheep. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around sheep, but they are the dumbest things ever to walk the earth. Astoundingly stupid. How could us sheep ever decipher the Bible in any meaningful way? If God is Love, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and believe me, I’m looking.

I really want to believe like I did before, but too many things just make no sense to me. Baaaaaaa.
I find the basic premise of your logic to be flawed.

On one hand, you admit God gives us free will, but then IMHO you contradict that statement by saying God failed to get what He wants or as I think you put it ‘God has a failure rate of 33% with the angels’

I don’t see how it is logical to say God has given His creation free will and then to say God has failed.

Not understanding here.
 
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Consider all the people throughout history who have lived and died. It’s a number that completely dwarfs the number of people alive at present, more on that later. Now consider how many of those people likely passed the test. Keep in mind that God murdered entire cities for doing so poorly on the test he didn’t even wait until they died to send them to forever-hell (not just non-existence like the time before birth, but eternal punishment for a finite life). I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people who have lived and died here did NOT pass the test for one reason or another. After all, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle etc etc…

Setting that aside for a moment, consider the fact that the majority of people alive at the moment are not Christians.
FWIW, your thinking parallels, in many respects, that of the founder of the Jehovahs Witnesses, Charles Taze Russell. I am not recommending anything by saying that, but it is a puzzling thing that many people have wrestled with.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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I was raised in a devout Christian household. I believed. I prayed. I had faith. I was also very young. Later, once I had gained a more sophisticated intellect, I began to notice that what I believe did not match up with what I was seeing every day, and what I knew of human history (horrible and disgusting).

Everyone seems to agree on the premise that God loves us, and desires to be with us forever. But in order to be with him, you have to go through a pass/fail test called life. Consider all the people throughout history who have lived and died. It’s a number that completely dwarfs the number of people alive at present, more on that later. Now consider how many of those people likely passed the test. Keep in mind that God murdered entire cities for doing so poorly on the test he didn’t even wait until they died to send them to forever-hell (not just non-existence like the time before birth, but eternal punishment for a finite life). I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people who have lived and died here did NOT pass the test for one reason or another. After all, it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle etc etc…

Setting that aside for a moment, consider the fact that the majority of people alive at the moment are not Christians. God must be very disappointed (again…more) because Christianity, while being a major world religion, is totally eclipsed by the other major religions, population-wise. That isn’t even counting the atheists and the I’m-not-sures. So, God doesn’t get what he wants? Why? Because free-will is more important? Seriously, God’s success rate looks very, very low – like an idea that appears good in theory but fails in execution. He even had to drown ALL of us at one point because things were going so badly. This is the etch-a-sketch version of creation. This is the absent watch-maker which, sadly, makes more sense to me every day. People say they have experienced the hand of God in their lives, but all I see is coincidence. It’s a thing, guys. It happens.

Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. God already created a cadre of angels, seemingly on a ranking system since Lucifer was the main dude in charge. But Lucifer, having intimate knowledge of God’s omniscience and power, figured he could challenge God and win? Wait, what? Was he stupid? How am I supposed to believe that? And to make matters worse, ONE THIRD of God’s soldiers followed Lucifer? So even within God’s own angels he has a failing grade: 66.6% is an F+. If God is so awesome (in the real context of that word) why would his creations rebel? Because free-will? That makes NO sense to me. I would happily give up free will to get out of this place (earth).

To sum up: God created lots of angels, then 33% of them left, figuring they could beat God. Then God created an unthinkable number of human beings for the specific purpose of populating hell forever, as punishment for their finite lives. He knew what he was doing and what would happen. This constitutes the vast majority of the entire human race, living and dead, which really looks like failure (or, at the very least not love) to me. And lastly, our only guide comes in the form of an ancient book, written by ancient people in antiquated languages (classical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) which have NO PUNCTUATION, VERB TENSE OR EVEN SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. In Greek, you can’t tell the difference between

God is now here

And

God is nowhere

Because what you're looking at is Godisnowhere. Or maybe it's "God I Snow Here". You don't know.

There’s a reason why “It’s all Greek to me” is an expression. The result: A crazy long book we have no hope of understanding unless we are fluent in classical Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and Greek, and can time-travel in order to understand the social context of all these documents when they were written. The book is so vague and open to misinterpretation it seems unlikely anyone can decipher its original meaning. That’s probably why there’s 150 different flavors of Christianity. And furthermore, within this document, he calls us sheep. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around sheep, but they are the dumbest things ever to walk the earth. Astoundingly stupid. How could us sheep ever decipher the Bible in any meaningful way? If God is Love, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and believe me, I’m looking.

I really want to believe like I did before, but too many things just make no sense to me. Baaaaaaa.

I usually find that one of the best ways to retain a sensitivity to Christian faith is to take the more robust works of atheist literature and apply a high-powered, philosophical chain-saw to their arguments, kind of like how atheists do with the various Christian apologetic literature. Of course, this course of study and action works better if one has a degree in philosophy. But as I always say, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!"

It also helps if one only expects God to work through the ordinariness of human life rather than presenting to us high caliber manifestations of the miraculous. Do I need to see the parting of the Red Sea? .....nah.

And one more thing. Learning to apply more academic modes of hermeneutics to one's reading of the Bible can also be another help, one that many Christians don't avail themselves of very much.
 
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Love only exists if there is free will. That is the explanation. The rational mind can't comprehend Love. It is not learned by someone informing someone else. It is not even learned by studying Scripture. It is learned by direct contact of a person with the Spirit of God.

You have many, many thoughts and impressions which arise within your mind which are casting long shadows of strong doubt about the existence of God. Do you suppose that it's mostly you who have such thoughts? Could such thoughts and impressions also present themselves to a lot of other people? Do you think that these impressions and ideas about earthly reality are coming merely from within your own mind? Have you ever considered the possibility that an intelligent, malevolent spirit or even several such spirits may be shouting these things into your soul, enticing you to embrace faithlessness so that you may never come to know God? God is known only through grace, which becomes the gift of those who repent of sin because of their faith in His gift of salvation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, by which we receive Eternal Life in knowing our inexhaustible God.

What's astoundingly stupid is us, when we forget that God is. I have done this as well.

Wow, thank you for your erudite response. I read it many times. You hit the nail on the head. I have no doubt that God exists, but I have strong doubt that he loves us, or is even around at all. Believing in chance instead of God just takes more faith than I will ever possess.

Your first paragraph is amazing. Maybe I have never been taught through direct contact with a person who speaks with the Spirit of God (in my adult years).

Your second paragraph gives me a lot to think about.
Thank you so much.
 
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I usually find that one of the best ways to retain a sensitivity to Christian faith is to take the more robust works of atheist literature and apply a high-powered, philosophical chain-saw to their arguments, kind of like how atheists do with the various Christian apologetic literature. Of course, this course of study and action works better if one has a degree in philosophy. But as I always say, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!"

It also helps if one only expects God to work through the ordinariness of human life rather than presenting to us high caliber manifestations of the miraculous. Do I need to see the parting of the Red Sea? .....nah.

And one more thing. Learning to apply more academic modes of hermeneutics to one's reading of the Bible can also be another help, one that many Christians don't avail themselves of very much.

Thank you for this great response. I learned about academic modes of hermeneutics in my theology class long ago. Thank you so much for reminding me. I dismiss atheism out of hand; I don't have that much faith. I just don't see LOVE in our design, or the design of our environment.
 
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FWIW, your thinking parallels, in many respects, that of the founder of the Jehovahs Witnesses, Charles Taze Russell. I am not recommending anything by saying that, but it is a puzzling thing that many people have wrestled with.

Yikes. That's not the tack I'm trying to take. If so many have wrestled with this, how do they resolve it in their own minds? Is the answer to just not think about it? If so, why are we created with the capacity and intellect to form such questions?
 
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Thank you for this great response. I learned about academic modes of hermeneutics in my theology class long ago. Thank you so much for reminding me. I dismiss atheism out of hand; I don't have that much faith. I just don't see LOVE in our design, or the design of our environment.

Just based on what we can understand from the Bible, particularly the New Testament, I think God's love isn't insinuative of His perceiving that there is a necessity to make our lives easier, bigger, better, or brighter. I know that can sound like a downer, but God's love is going to work itself out in its expression toward us as we all move through the grind of daily living and as it is typically experienced in ordinary life.

It's also good to keep in mind that none of us is meant to "do this Christian thing" alone ... ;)
 
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I find the basic premise of your logic to be flawed.

On one hand, you admit God gives us free will, but then IMHO you contradict that statement by saying God failed to get what He wants or as I think you put it ‘God has a failure rate of 33% with the angels’

I don’t see how it is logical to say God has given His creation free will and then to say God has failed.

Not understanding here.

Thank you for your response. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Someone to shred my logic until it becomes absurd to try to defend. THEN maybe my heart will change...maybe? The problem is I cannot pick and choose the parts of the Bible that make sense to me....it's all or nothing....and there's some seriously strange stuff in there. I've read the Bible in total twice, two different translations. No help, just a lot of opacity.

My problem is: God, being all powerful, creates things with their own free will. Every time he does this, free will takes over, and God loses them. Lots of them. Sometimes, most of them. Free will must be pretty important, considering what a truly horrible creation humanity turned out to be.
 
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LastAttempt

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Grace and peace to you.

LastAttempt, I believe that you are experiencing trials in faith. I pray that you will experience God's love to the fullest.

Read the Bible with the Passion Translation. It is much easier to understand. King James version is very difficult to understand. Language has changed.

God does love you, and he is knocking on your door. All you have to do is let him in.

I recommend watching Dan Mohler or Todd White videos on YouTube. They can inspire you and help you with your identity issues.

YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD! God loves you very much. He might be speaking to you, but you aren't listening. Be still. And wait expectantly.

Thank you for this very considerate response. I will definitely check out the youtube vids. I feel like I've been listening for about two decades, so maybe I don't know what listening actually is in this context, and I don't know what you mean by "Be still." How do I be still and listen like you are describing? I don't understand.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Thank you for your response. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Someone to shred my logic until it becomes absurd to try to defend. THEN maybe my heart will change...maybe? The problem is I cannot pick and choose the parts of the Bible that make sense to me....it's all or nothing....and there's some seriously strange stuff in there. I've read the Bible in total twice, two different translations. No help, just a lot of opacity.

My problem is: God, being all powerful, creates things with their own free will. Every time he does this, free will takes over, and God loses them. Lots of them. Sometimes, most of them. Free will must be pretty important, considering what a truly horrible creation humanity turned out to be.

...well, it's also good to keep in mind that from what Jesus is recorded to have said, this "shortfall" in more positive human response toward God is to be expected, not something to be surprised by. At the same time, He holds people accountable for what we think about Him and in how we respond to Him. The upshot of this tragedy, and one which the Christian church over the centuries hasn't seemed to notice, is that this implies that salvation may actually require LESS in the way of exacting knowledge about Christ than what we've made it out to be.

Just something to think about. :cool:
 
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