Can Someone Explain This To Me Please?

[aiki]

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).

What you could have understood of the Christian faith and the world as a very young child was bound to dissolve before a more mature and, as you put it, "more sophisticated" sort of adult understanding of the world. Did your understanding of your faith mature and develop the complexity it ought to have as you grew older? It sounds like it didn't. Here are some sites that will help you do so now:

www.reasonablefaith.org
www.crossexamined.org
www.str.org
www.coldcasechristianity.com

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.

This isn't what the Bible says. Being with God is as simple as trusting in Christ as one's Saviour and submitting to him as one's Lord.

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.

There is only one reason people fail to "pass the test": their sin. God's measure of success isn't a matter of numbers.

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?

What does God want? To glorify Himself. Is He concerned about winning a popularity contest of religion? No. Can an omniscient God be disappointed? No. That would require He have an expectation that wasn't fulfilled. But God knows all. He can't therefore expect one thing and have another come to pass.

Seriously, God’s success rate looks very, very low – like an idea that appears good in theory but fails in execution.

Success rate at what, exactly? God's primary concern is Himself, not how many people choose to love and walk with Him. He made the universe for Himself, not for us.

He even had to drown ALL of us at one point because things were going so badly.

He seems to have succeeded very well in judging the wickedness of humanity with the Flood.

This is the absent watch-maker which, sadly, makes more sense to me every day.

Given the lack of sophistication concerning God and the Christian faith that you demonstrate in your post, I'm not surprised this is what makes sense to you. But this is a reflection of your ignorance rather than any shortcomings in the Christian worldview.

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.

You're of course entitled to your opinion. But it is an entirely facile response to the Christian's claim to experience God to chalk it all up to coincidence. My interactions with God go far beyond what can be explained by mere coincidence.

But Lucifer, having intimate knowledge of God’s omniscience and power, figured he could challenge God and win? Wait, what? Was he stupid?

No, just caught in the grip of his own enormous vanity and pride.

How am I supposed to believe that?

The Bible never asks you to believe Satan was stupid, only incredibly prideful.

So even within God’s own angels he has a failing grade: 66.6% is an F+.

By what criteria do you judge Satan and his angels ejection from heaven as a failing on God's part? It looks to me like God did exactly as He wanted with Satan and his rebellious angelic followers.

By the way, 66.6% is not an F+. It's a C/C+.

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).

Why do you rebel against your Maker? Does your free will have nothing to do with it? Why is it so difficult to imagine that pride could have motivated Satan's rebellion? Pride is ultimately at the heart of the rebellion toward God of each one of us. You included.

Then God created an unthinkable number of human beings for the specific purpose of populating hell forever, as punishment for their finite lives.

This isn't at all what God created people for. He made all of us to know, and love, and walk with Him. That we refuse to do so is on us, not Him.

He knew what he was doing and what would happen.

Every parent who births a child knows that one day that child will die. Is it evil, then, to give birth to children?

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.

Well, your understanding of the Christian faith and of God is woefully deficient. Inform yourself better about both before you come to any hard conclusions. The websites I've suggested to you will help.

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.

If you know at least this much, why wouldn't the scholars who translated the Bible from those ancient languages know a good deal more? In fact, they do and are perfectly well-equipped to translate the Bible accurately which they have.

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.

Now you're just being silly. This sounds like the sort of stuff that one finds on the many idiotic atheist websites that populate the 'net.

The book is so vague and open to misinterpretation it seems unlikely anyone can decipher its original meaning.

So far, you haven't demonstrated that you're in a good place from which to judge this about the Bible. Again, sounds like atheist website stuff.

That’s probably why there’s 150 different flavors of Christianity.

No, in fact, there aren't that many "flavours." You really are just repeating atheist silliness now, aren't you?

If God is Love, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and believe me, I’m looking.

If your post is anything to go by, you most definitely aren't looking. Or, at least, you aren't looking very hard.

 

[LastAttempt]

Well, alrighty then. Thank you for your point-by-point condescending responses **deep bow to your intellectual and spiritual superiority which you have so aptly demonstrated** You must be sooooo smart and knower of the unknowable! Congrats! You must be used to arguing with atheists. I'm not one of those. I'm desperately trying to make sense of this chaos, not proselytizing anything. So, with your last, completely useless and derogatory reply I will stop checking this board anymore. Thank you so much to those who responded with a modicum of civility, and tried to understand what I'm struggling with. Moral of the story: don't use the internet to help you with spiritual matters because of people like you.
Thanks! Now I know not to waste my time looking anymore, after 15 yrs.

This was my LastAttempt so, you won't see me around anymore. Yeah, I know you all are crying.
Goodbye (in a big way), and thanks for nothing.

 

[hedrick]

I don’t think aiki’s response speaks for Christians in general. I would guess that many of us have felt the way you do at times. From a certain theological point of view people can say it’s just a sign of your rebellion. But remember that at the end of Job, God commended Job for speaking the truth and condemned the people pushing conventional religion at him.

I don’t know why God didn’t just make things ideal. But what he chose to do was to join us in this less-than-perfect world, and called us to join him in fixing things. It seems to me that if you think things are wrong, that’s the best way to react.

I understand that if you think God is evil, you’re not likely to want to join him in anything. But that’s not what most of us get from the Bible. It’s the result of a certain approach to dealing with the varying portraits of God in the Bible. There was certainly a view of God as a war god, who supported just one people and wanted the rest dead. But that’s not what the prophets taught, and they’re the ones Jesus referred to mostly in the OT. The prophets taught that the nation would be judged by how it treated the most vulnerable people.

 

[aiki]

Well, alrighty then. Thank you for your point-by-point condescending responses **deep bow to your intellectual and spiritual superiority which you have so aptly demonstrated** You must be sooooo smart and knower of the unknowable!

This is an odd reply. Were you expecting to bowl us all over with your collection of atheist arguments? Were you expecting us to be caught flat-footed and speechless before your ideas and criticisms of the faith? I find a lot of the atheists who come to the site have this expectation. They, too, get annoyed when they don't find it met. Why you should object to a Christian who has good responses to your criticisms is rather a puzzle to me - unless, of course, what you want is to encounter Christians who can't answer your criticisms.

You must be used to arguing with atheists. I'm not one of those.

I am used to arguing with atheists, yes. And because I am, I recognize a lot of their arguments in your post. I'm glad to know you don't think of yourself as an atheist even though you sound very much like one.

So, with your last, completely useless and derogatory reply I will stop checking this board anymore.

I think you're just looking for an excuse not to engage with the things I've pointed out to you. And, by the way, I was not derogatory toward you personally, though I don't think much of the problems with the Christian faith that you've put forward. I can make a distinction between you and your criticisms of my faith. Can you?

Thanks! Now I know not to waste my time looking anymore, after 15 yrs.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a kind of emotional manipulation. It won't work with me. I grew up with an emotionally hyper-manipulative parent and have developed something of an immunity to this sort of behaviour.

This was my LastAttempt so, you won't see me around anymore. Yeah, I know you all are crying.
Goodbye (in a big way), and thanks for nothing.

You always have the option of putting away your hyper-sensitivity and actually engaging deeply and thoughtfully with the Christian faith. I'm here whenever you think you can do so.

 

[Serving Zion]

Moral of the story: don't use the internet to help you with spiritual matters

.. I know the problem, and precisely what it's root is: misunderstanding - through not having received the fullness of the person who is communicating.

When a person reads words, they need to picture a personality behind those words, so as to make judgements of that person's character (we even do this in real life too).

Unfortunately, if we don't know the character of the person that we are reading, it is easy to imagine that they are of a character different to who they truly are (even this can happen in real life, too!).

As a result of this, a word that is spoken with an intention can be misinterpreted by the reader as having a different intention than the speaker gave in it, and it is all because the recipient has not recognised the true character of the person who is speaking. Again, this can happen in real life too, and that is how they stoned Stephen.

An online video chat is helpful, as is even a voice chat, because it enables a faster and fuller response when the speaker detects that they have been misunderstood - whereas with written communications, there is quite a window of time between responses where it is easy for the one who has the misunderstanding to fall further into error as their imagination leads them to get even more worked up (and vice-versa).

.. but, then you also do need to be speaking with someone who cares enough to put compassion into their speech .. and when you take all that I have just explained and turn it against the speaker (because communication is an exchange between two parties), then you get some insight into why some people seem to speak straight past you - as though they aren't hearing you, but they are really just not seeing you clearly for who you are. They are blinded by having wrongly applied a negative stereotype against you (and vice-versa).

So if you think that a video chat would help us to have a satisfactory conversation, knowing that our conversation was useful at times, then I'll just suggest that you can Private Message me and let's exchange a Facebook or Skype connection and get a bit more real about it

.. best wishes as I continue to think well of you!

 

[hedrick]

Moral of the story: don't use the internet to help you with spiritual matters because of people like you.

That's not an unreasonable conclusion. Internet discussions tend to favor nasty interactions more than in-person discussions. And CF in particular is not a place for people outside the conservative mainstream to look for support (though the interactions with you seem to have been worse than usual). There are local churches that would be happy to help you. There really are lots of Christians who are both sympathetic and supportive.

 

[aiki]

don’t think aiki’s response speaks for Christians in general.

On what basis, Hedrick, do you presume to speak for Christians in general? How many of the Christians on the planet do you know well enough to serve as their spokesman? There are many millions of them. Do you know personally millions of Christians? I very much doubt it.

 

[dhh712]

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.

If I was raised with that understanding of God, I wouldn't believe in him either. Incidentally, I was kind of raised with a similar understanding, very un-biblically based too, just this vague idea of going to church and believing in God is just what you did. I wasn't taught much of anything beyond your basics and to be honest, I couldn't even tell you hardly any of what I was taught in religion class (parents didn't really teach me anything about it either beyond a few asides here and there).

Later in life I began to study Christianity on my own. I read the Westminster Confessions of Faith and was astounded by what I had learned. God made sense, as much as he can to us, in a way he never did before. I'd give it a shot, if you're logically-inclined as I was. Other teachings of Christianity just didn't add up; there were too many loose ends.

One of the central ideas to Presbyterianism is that our purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It's not about us but God. He didn't put us here on earth to pass a test to see how good we can be and those that don't make it are out. We are here because he is merciful enough to want to save us fallen creatures, instead of letting us all be condemned as we deserve.

God alone is worthy of worship, of glory. We as humans are naturally inclined to worship something. Some people are astounded by the majesty and beauty of the scenery in a mountainous country-side area. Some of those views are more beautiful than one can ever imagine and just take your breath away. What really is that kind of recognition? We are wired to give worship to these kinds of things, to find glory in something.

Those who think God is just some big prick in the sky who wants to shoot people down because they don't worship him are missing the point. He is the very definition of beauty, majesty, glory, everything wonderful and great that anyone can ever experience. To not want to worship him is to say you don't want any of that, and then you're just lying to yourself. You do want that. You just don't know that it's God that you want or your ego is getting in the way of acknowledging that and being able to humble yourself before him.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

LastAttempt,


{Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. }

No it did not exist then or now. The bible is to be believed anyhow.You are starting out with a fallen man made idea, not with biblical revelation as we all should. Free will is not in the bible at all.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

LastAttempt,
{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
Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. }

God is never frustrated or disappointed. His eternal plan is unfolding exactly as he has ordained it.
Free will is a man made myth...it is carnal philosophy, not biblical

 

[Uber Genius]

LastAttempt,


{Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. }

No it did not exist then or now. The bible is to be believed anyhow.You are starting out with a fallen man made idea, not with biblical revelation as we all should. Free will is not in the bible at all.

This is incoherent!
Were you free to write that statment?

We see 1000s of passages in scripture telling us to make wise choices, or to follow God's commands, to be obedient.

Are these all false?

Was Jesus not obedient to the will of the father?

Are we not called to become disciples by training our will to obey God and not our fleshly desires? Again these are incoherent if we have no free will as your post suggests.

Please engage the evidence of scripture and avoid incoherent misrepresentations of same.

 

[Uber Genius]

LastAttempt,
{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
Free-will obviously existed before we did, if the Bible is to be believed. }

God is never frustrated or disappointed. His eternal plan is unfolding exactly as he has ordained it.
Free will is a man made myth...it is carnal philosophy, not biblical

…12not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun—because they did follow the LORD wholeheartedly.’ 13The LORD’s anger burnedagainst Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the wholegeneration who had done evil in His sightwas gone. 14Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.…(Numbers 32:13)

Why is God angry?

He controls everything and everyone like marionettes on Calvinism!

He has created a play, and performs that play with a bunch of puppets and then gets angry and frustrated because they won't serve him "Wholeheartedly." This is incoherent because in the definition of wholeheartedly is the concept of freely loving and having the ability not to love.

There are similar passages throughout the Old and New Testaments by the dozens.

Jesus laments Jerusalem saying, ""Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." Matt 23:37

What does the phrase, "Not willing," mean?

To a Calvinist that passage would finish, "But my Father in heaven and I were not willing that you be gathered, and I actually made you kill my prophets and stone those who I sent!"

Under Calvinism Jesus becomes an incoherent madman!

Further the Bible becomes incoherent if it is filled with thousands of false statements by inferring we have free will when, on Calvinism we don't.

 

[Uber Genius]

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.

You seemed to be sadly misinformed on the nature of the Greek text. There are spaces. Punctuation is what is lacking. But exegesis is based on sentences inside of paragraphs inside of themes. We can get to what the original author was conveying in the majority of cases.

Greek grammar does allow many more ways to convey an idea than in English, but thankfully context gives us a great guide as what the author and audience would understand.

I would eliminate the source you used to form your view of the Bible. It is dubious.

 

[Uber Genius]

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.

You seemed to be sadly misinformed on the nature of the Greek text. There are spaces. Punctuation is what is lacking. But exegesis is based on sentences inside of paragraphs inside of themes. We can get to what the original author was conveying in the majority of cases.

Greek grammar does allow many more ways to convey an idea than in English, but thankfully context gives us a great guide as what the author and audience would understand.

I would eliminate the source you used to form your view of the Bible. It is dubious.

 

[Uber Genius]

Dumb, Directionless, Defenseless - Tim Challies
A bit smarter than we initially thought at first, but still quite stupid.

You seem to be trying to miss the point for the sake of mocking Christians for following God. Do you think Jesus was an anti-intellectual (sheep) what about Paul?

If ad hominem attacks and sweeping generalizations are what passes for "smart," we are in trouble.

 

[Uber Genius]

How about another angle on the ol' "like a sheep" discussion:
Sheep are not stupid, and they are not helpless either

Generous appraisal of OPs ad hominem (all Christians are dumb as sheep). The average grade-schooler could determine the context of Challes message. But you are to be applauded for taking the high road and pretending it is just a comprehension issue.

 

[LastAttempt]

This thread has become too asinine to be allowed to continue. I fully regret coming here, and thank you, christianforums, for teaching me an important lesson: Never discuss this with anyone, ever again. But please, feel free to argue amongst yourselves, it clearly seems to make a lot of you feel quite smart.

 

[hedrick]

This thread has become too asinine to be allowed to continue. I fully regret coming here, and thank you, christianforums, for teaching me an important lesson: Never discuss this with anyone, ever again. But please, feel free to argue amongst yourselves, it clearly seems to make a lot of you feel quite smart.

I'm really upset about the response you've gotten. But the moral isn't that you shouldn't ask for support. It's that an Internet forum, particularly one where many participants feel strongly about doctrinal conformity, isn't the right place to look.

Many Christians would be happy to talk with you in person. It also looks to me like you could benefit from personal counseling or mentoring. That doesn't necessarily have to come from a church, but there are certainly pastors with the right background, and who care. (However there are also pastors that are a lot like CF participants. It's pretty easy to guess which is which based on the denomination they belong to, though that's not a perfect criterion.)

God really does care about you, even if it doesn't look like all of his followers do.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

Uber Genius,

Hello UG,

[This is incoherent!
Were you free to write that statment]

Let's consider together my friend and see if we can make sense of it for you.

[We see 1000s of passages in scripture telling us to make wise choices, or to follow God's commands, to be obedient.]

Yes we do.Everyone makes choices and we are free moral agents to make such choices everyday.
Making choices however does not speak to the condition of mans will however.
Most doctrinal error stems from a wrong view of mans fall into sin and death.
In John 8 The Lord Jesus Christ explained to religious persons that they were bound, or slaves to sin. Only He can set them free to serve God,,,and even then man's will is not free.

[Are these all false?]
No...we make choices all the time. Sometimes I use plum preserves, or at other times I choose apple jelly on my toast.

[Was Jesus not obedient to the will of the father?]

The sinless Son of God came to do the will of the Father. jn6
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Yes...Jesus came to die a Covenant death for all those given to Him by The Father.
He was sinless and perfect. In heaven when we glorified , we will be free to serve 100%, but alas, NO ONE will be free to Sin in heaven...not possible. Do you agree that this is scriptural UG?

On earth we are able to sin...but are not "free to sin"

{Are we not called to become disciples by training our will to obey God and not our fleshly desires? }
Ug....yes we are disciples... we are called to mortify sin, we are called to the obedience of faith.
These are not options but commands that the Spirit enables us to do.He works in us;look here;
12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
[Again these are incoherent if we have no free will as your post suggests.]

The term "free will "does not appear in reference to mans will in scripture.
In the OT law it occurs 17 times in reference to freewill offerings which were not commanded by law....but not speaking of mans condition or nature, so you have no verse that says it even exists.
[Please engage the evidence of scripture and avoid incoherent misrepresentations of same.]
Well my friend...it is now up to you to show one verse that teaches actual free will of fallen dead sinners and we will see who is making incoherent statements

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

"Uber Genius, …
[(Numbers 32:13)
Why is God angry?
He controls everything and everyone like marionettes on Calvinism!]

God is angry with the wicked everyday. A holy God has a Holy hatred for sin.
UG....do you know a god who does not control everything?

{He has created a play, and performs that play with a bunch of puppets and then gets angry and frustrated because they won't serve him "Wholeheartedly."}
Fallen men sin because they love sin.It does not surprise God. He has the prophets speak to fallen men in language we can understand...anthropomorhisms.


[Jesus laments Jerusalem saying, ""Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." Matt 23:37

What does the phrase, "Not willing," mean?]

just what is says...THEY WERE NOT WILLING....THE COULD NOT, AND WOULD NOT COME.


[To a Calvinist that passage would finish, "But my Father in heaven and I were not willing that you be gathered, and I actually made you kill my prophets and stone those who I sent!"]
I have never heard any calvinist suggest such a thing.

[Under Calvinism Jesus becomes an incoherent madman!]
Friend... do not use such profane language when speaking of the biblical God.

[Further the Bible becomes incoherent if it is filled with thousands of false statements by inferring we have free will when, on Calvinism we don't.]
No...your misunderstanding the fall is causing you to elevate mans fallen self will into an idol.
Keep searching UG,but try and learn the position you are seeking to attack. View it with a view to understand rather than being set to resist.