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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
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SonicBOOM
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I'm reading this thread and smiling 
it's nice to know I'm not the only one who doubts on a daily basis. I'm gonna make a reply to the thread as a whole.
First... doubt is a natural [and understandable] struggle with the Christian faith. Only when we doubt can we believe stronger. Also I can't name more than 5 biblical people who have never showed a sign of doubt. It's normal and I think it needs more grace than what most Christians are willing to give. Read the Psalms.... i find David talks more about doubt and personal struggles than he does about most anything else. My advice would be to first realize this... above else. After you realize this than let go... don't try to prove God... let God do that. Besides.... he will find a way to come to you.... if you let him.
Also.... God created both the body and spirit so ignoring the physical would land you face first into cultic doctrines. I believe we gotta focus on the spiritual for fear of neglicting it entirely! But the physical is I think just as weighty and as important. Plus... here's a very tricky thing about the spiritual. as Paul says it's unseen. the crazy thing about unseen things is they can't be proven by seen things. this is both relieving and horrifying. It's relieving because it lets us know there's something bigger than us. but it's horrifying because we can make up any old lie we want and pat it down with an "unseen" excuse! Be very careful;! As Christians we need to care about truth so very much.... but it seems we focus more on defending our political views in the way i just described. could we be wrong? You better believe it. always keep a humble attitude.... always
Also this jumped out at me.
this also jumped out at me.
it's nice to know I'm not the only one who doubts on a daily basis. I'm gonna make a reply to the thread as a whole.First... doubt is a natural [and understandable] struggle with the Christian faith. Only when we doubt can we believe stronger. Also I can't name more than 5 biblical people who have never showed a sign of doubt. It's normal and I think it needs more grace than what most Christians are willing to give. Read the Psalms.... i find David talks more about doubt and personal struggles than he does about most anything else. My advice would be to first realize this... above else. After you realize this than let go... don't try to prove God... let God do that. Besides.... he will find a way to come to you.... if you let him.
Also.... God created both the body and spirit so ignoring the physical would land you face first into cultic doctrines. I believe we gotta focus on the spiritual for fear of neglicting it entirely! But the physical is I think just as weighty and as important. Plus... here's a very tricky thing about the spiritual. as Paul says it's unseen. the crazy thing about unseen things is they can't be proven by seen things. this is both relieving and horrifying. It's relieving because it lets us know there's something bigger than us. but it's horrifying because we can make up any old lie we want and pat it down with an "unseen" excuse! Be very careful;! As Christians we need to care about truth so very much.... but it seems we focus more on defending our political views in the way i just described. could we be wrong? You better believe it. always keep a humble attitude.... always
Also this jumped out at me.
not true. Fire does indeed come down... but it's to cleanse the world of the damage done by the sinful actions of men. Read revelation.... the earth is in pretty bad shape by the time Jesus comes down... he says he remakes the earth. Here's good news. we get the earth back better than ever!
this also jumped out at me.
I'm confused why something would have more meaning because it was fading away everyday. If it's eternal we might indeed take it for granted... but that neither increases nor decreases it's value. I think human-kind is wired for eternity in a very profound way. None of us would get married if we really relized we would only have the full fruits of marrege for maybe 5 years. The other years we getta struggle through the presures of being married while at the same time watch our spouses outer beauty slowly fade away due to old age. 5 good years... the rest is struggles. Same for projects..... most real meaningful projects take more than a lifetime to complete. Sure.... things might have more meaning if they didn't last forever... but we would be far to depressed to enjoy them because we know it wouldn't last. We would become much like Solomon in Ecclastastes who says everything is meaningless and cheap vanity and the most meaningful things in life are nothing but a chasing of the wind and just wild goose chases. Why? because we simply don't have enough time!
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Katie7725
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marriage after the first 5 years is not horrible. Sure you lose some of your physical beauty but you learn to love the person you are more and more. With age comes understanding and a deeper sense of love. You also get the joy of watching your children and grandchildren grow up and go out into the world and hopefully do great things and enjoy life. It is a meaningful journey and if you live a meaningful life when you are old you accept death for what is and accept the fact that you don't live forever. You know why people love the concept of God so much, b/c it gives their lives meaning if they have done nothing meaningful in their life or lived to the fullest. Heck you get to live forever so it's ok that you wasted your life. Every good book comes to an end, if it didn't it would have no value.
Believing in something that is not part of reality is not going to change reality. You did not exist before you were born did you, no you are not eternal, your consciousness is not eternal. There is nothing wrong with death, nothing wrong with non existence.You felt no pain before birth and you wont after life. If humanity would take a long look at death and see it for what it is there would not be a need for all this mythology.
Believing in something that is not part of reality is not going to change reality. You did not exist before you were born did you, no you are not eternal, your consciousness is not eternal. There is nothing wrong with death, nothing wrong with non existence.You felt no pain before birth and you wont after life. If humanity would take a long look at death and see it for what it is there would not be a need for all this mythology.
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onshye1
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masked_chris, please read luke 21:33
"heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
Yes, God will eventually create a new earth (jerusalem) when relationship between man and god will be restored. But our present earth will "pass away". i.e. destroyed, cease to exist, etc.
"heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
Yes, God will eventually create a new earth (jerusalem) when relationship between man and god will be restored. But our present earth will "pass away". i.e. destroyed, cease to exist, etc.
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MLH1986
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hogndog does the fact that not everyone believes in god confuse you? You are trying to get me into something before you have even laid the groundwork why I should believe. I have told you time and time again in our messenger conversations that I thought the story of Jesus is good and that of Christianity but I don't know if I believe it. Quit pouring bible verses on me to prove its validity. Don't use quotes of the bible to prove the bible that's circular logic and that is extremely flawed. I do want more in this life and I want to hear why you think it is true amongst all the other religions. Give me historical evidence, something I can sink my teeth into. Tell me how to pray effectively, tell me how to get a response from God. I need to have belief in this before I even attempt to follow it.
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SonicBOOM
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yeah that marriage example was unjustifiable I shouldve used a better example. My apologize. I understand what your saying about people accepting God in order to escape from reality. I find this is why alot of people do accept God. though i think it's very untrue to say that everyone who believes in eternal things takes life for granted. Life is a precious thing and I think it's sad how most theists take life for granted. God seems to appreciate life so very much and this is displayed countless times.
My point was simply to show how life can be more of a reality when you consider eternal things. i think it's incredibly ambitious to demand that everyone meet their full-potential in the puny 100 years we have here [at the very most]. Eternity was meant to keep our hopes enlightened so we can appreciate life alot more. i think understanding that evil doesn't have the last say would give our hearts alot of hope and give us a reason to appreciate life rather than "it's the right thing to do". Infact this is how alot of people do indeed find God. They start to understand this.
As for "accepting reality" i would advice strong caution on what you mean. If we make "reality" synomimous with what we can understand than i think we might be in a world of trouble. Space itself doesn't make sense. There is no beginning or ending to the outer galaxy. Where does it end? Where does it began? No one knows.... though I assure you it's very much a reality. I wonder why people are so eager to write the idea of God off of their list simply because they can't understand him. Surely if a being higher than humans did indeed exist it would be hard to wrap the pitiful human mind around such a profoundly complex being. I'm not saying we should use this as logical proof because it's not really proof at all. I'm just saying that we are making a very swift move to dismiss an idea because the human mind can't wrap itself around it.
I shouldve used a better example. My apologize. I understand what your saying about people accepting God in order to escape from reality. I find this is why alot of people do accept God. though i think it's very untrue to say that everyone who believes in eternal things takes life for granted. Life is a precious thing and I think it's sad how most theists take life for granted. God seems to appreciate life so very much and this is displayed countless times.My point was simply to show how life can be more of a reality when you consider eternal things. i think it's incredibly ambitious to demand that everyone meet their full-potential in the puny 100 years we have here [at the very most]. Eternity was meant to keep our hopes enlightened so we can appreciate life alot more. i think understanding that evil doesn't have the last say would give our hearts alot of hope and give us a reason to appreciate life rather than "it's the right thing to do". Infact this is how alot of people do indeed find God. They start to understand this.
As for "accepting reality" i would advice strong caution on what you mean. If we make "reality" synomimous with what we can understand than i think we might be in a world of trouble. Space itself doesn't make sense. There is no beginning or ending to the outer galaxy. Where does it end? Where does it began? No one knows.... though I assure you it's very much a reality. I wonder why people are so eager to write the idea of God off of their list simply because they can't understand him. Surely if a being higher than humans did indeed exist it would be hard to wrap the pitiful human mind around such a profoundly complex being. I'm not saying we should use this as logical proof because it's not really proof at all. I'm just saying that we are making a very swift move to dismiss an idea because the human mind can't wrap itself around it.
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SonicBOOM
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yes and this is displayed in revelation where God creates a new heaven and earth. But still.... my point stands. god doesn't do away with heaven and earth. He simply recreates it. If he's gonna make all things new surely he has to destroy the old in order to make the new. though I think the idea that this heaven and earth is gonna be "completely other" than what we have now is very much a faith-killing belief. I like to picture Eden
If the snake slithered in for the purpose of destroying that paradise wouldn't God wanna recreate it?
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Katie7725
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hello masked chris, I agree on some of the things you said and I appreciate your honesty. Now I am going to go over the things that I disagree with. Ok you listed the universe as eternal and that was comparable to believing in god. This fails because we believe the universe is infinite from knowledge and our study of the universe. See there is two definetions of believing; blind and educated. Now we know things such as time and the universe are infinite based on expierence and scientific knowledge. Yes the universe to humanity right now doesnt make 100% sense. But every year science is making great strides in understanding our origin and understanding the universe. We are a speck in this universe and we have a long way before we understand it. Now there is no, not one shred of scientific evidence for god. Do not try to compare the supernatural with the natural world, and don't try to use the natural world to prove your supernatural god. Ok another point you make is you say that evil wins if you die and don't have an afterlife. I am confused, how is this so? If you in your life made an impact on this world and bettered the human condition or simply made the lives of the ones around you happier how did you let evil win? Another thing that I want to bring up is if god can be eternal and infinite why can't the universe? Also if everything must be created like you say than who created god? Using the theory that a complex designer created a complex universe is a paradox.
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SonicBOOM
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hey Katie
I wanna be careful saying this as it's very sensitive ground. But I don't think God can be proven through science. I think the connection between science and God started kind of mid-way into the modern movement... though i think our ancestors would shake their heads if they could see how we have tied 2 things together that really have nothing in common at all. i think most real scientists will tell you that science was meant to tell you how life works while theism was meant to tell you what your supposed to do with life. Most theists use creation as their weapon to prove God and likewise most atheists use evolution to disprove. though if you take some distance you will find that evolution and theism have absolutely nothing in common. it's apples and oranges and I think this is where we have hit our snag. it's almost like we believe deep down that we have to give up science in order to believe in God or we have to give up God in order to study science. i mostly blame this flaw on the theists. Science was.... at first meant to show the world how life works. The beauty of science is that it only works on what the human mind can fathom. Everything else is left up to theism and the idea of a creator God. I believe we need both as both have proven to be pretty essential. In order to understand God we need to go back and fix this snag. Science has alot of purposes.... proving God was never meant to be one of them.
I meant that evil wins because the world is truly an awful place about 95% of the time. Evil wins because we live, we taste unspeakable evil and than we die with no hope. It would be awesome if we could make the most out of the life we have and than find out that there is a life much greater later on that solves our evil problem. Infact Jesus seems to have this mindset. His greatest words of praise are those who have spent their life well. The parable of the talents, the parable of the sheep and goats. Almost all his parables of the eternal point to this fact. We make the most of life now we don't cower beneath the idea of heaven. We bring heaven down to earth and try make earth "as it is in heaven". Jesus tells us to spend our days making the most out of our lives. The only difference here is he promises to reward us if we do.
I wanna be careful saying this as it's very sensitive ground. But I don't think God can be proven through science. I think the connection between science and God started kind of mid-way into the modern movement... though i think our ancestors would shake their heads if they could see how we have tied 2 things together that really have nothing in common at all. i think most real scientists will tell you that science was meant to tell you how life works while theism was meant to tell you what your supposed to do with life. Most theists use creation as their weapon to prove God and likewise most atheists use evolution to disprove. though if you take some distance you will find that evolution and theism have absolutely nothing in common. it's apples and oranges and I think this is where we have hit our snag. it's almost like we believe deep down that we have to give up science in order to believe in God or we have to give up God in order to study science. i mostly blame this flaw on the theists. Science was.... at first meant to show the world how life works. The beauty of science is that it only works on what the human mind can fathom. Everything else is left up to theism and the idea of a creator God. I believe we need both as both have proven to be pretty essential. In order to understand God we need to go back and fix this snag. Science has alot of purposes.... proving God was never meant to be one of them.
I think I confused you
I meant that evil wins because the world is truly an awful place about 95% of the time. Evil wins because we live, we taste unspeakable evil and than we die with no hope. It would be awesome if we could make the most out of the life we have and than find out that there is a life much greater later on that solves our evil problem. Infact Jesus seems to have this mindset. His greatest words of praise are those who have spent their life well. The parable of the talents, the parable of the sheep and goats. Almost all his parables of the eternal point to this fact. We make the most of life now we don't cower beneath the idea of heaven. We bring heaven down to earth and try make earth "as it is in heaven". Jesus tells us to spend our days making the most out of our lives. The only difference here is he promises to reward us if we do.
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Katie7725
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Well my reward is dying a happy woman knowing that I did something useful and meaningful with my life. The world doesn't have to be a awful place 95% of the time, thats what we should set out to change. If you enjoy the little things in life and appreciate what you do have than it's not all doom and gloom. Life is full of happiness and love, and many more aspects that make it worth living. I have enjoyed sharing with you and I hope you have enjoyed the same.
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SonicBOOM
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this optimism is admirable though I don't think all people can have this mindset and accept reality at the same time. I think this is the tragedy of it all. Over 50% of the world goes hungry everyday and most of this population will die. About 30% of the world lives under a dictatorship and are forced to live their life under someone else's control. That's only touching the surface though..... we are actually in a very fortunate time frame. In the past we had the dark ages, the slave trade, the great depression, the world wars. A quick look at history will tell you that life has been hell for about 95% of it and the majority of humankind has lived as victims of horrific events. I agree we need to take action against such evils and I believe we live in the good time-line we do because our fore-fathers have fought for our future.
yeah this has been fun
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onshye1
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Masked Chris I do not know why you are arguing with me as we seem to be on the same wavelenght. you verified that something new cannot be created unless something old is done away with, as in the case of the earth. It really does not matter if god choose to renovate and refurnish this earth or if he decides to create a new planet altogether. But one thing is certian: our present state of sin and ugliness and sufferings on this earth will pass away. it does not matter either way, because either way, our current earth and the things in it will pass away.
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Katie7725
Regular Member
Yep Masked Chris, those things are terrible but who caused all of this mankind. We reap what we sow. Yes a lot of people live hard lives and alot of people die. Its our responsibility to try to make this world better. We must value life not only for ourselves but for the others that live and share this planet. It is our responsibility to make change and try to bring peace in this world. We have came a long way but we still have a ways to go to. If I knew there was another life it would weaken my resolve to take action. Who cares if people die if they live eternal. I know you don't feel that way but that would have an effect on me. I am agnostic by the way which means I believe there is no evidence for or against god, meaning I don't agree with theist and atheist in their absolutist stance. I believe if God does exist thats good but it is supernatural and no one can ever know.
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hogndog
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The bible doesn't have a place where agnostics go. But he does have a place for those that don't believe go. Believe it or not. Heres how it works, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Believe not and the wrath of God abides on you.. Me thinks your going to need some 
here.
In Christ my King,
Lee
here.In Christ my King,
Lee
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SonicBOOM
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The bible doesn't have a place where agnostics go. But he does have a place for those that don't believe go. Believe it or not. Heres how it works, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Believe not and the wrath of God abides on you.. Me thinks your going to need some
In Christ my King,
Lee
agnosticism is one of the most down-to-earth beliefs out there. It simply means that their uncertain that God can be proven. Both theists and atheists throw out absolutes where there are no absolutes to be thrown out. Agnosticism I respect highly because it's alot more honest. Lets be real.... God has neither been proven nor dis-proven. the sooner we realize this the sooner we can end our foolish war where both sides are in denial. Besides.... the bible never ever claims that we are to "prove" God. it says we are to have faith. Trying to prove God is asking for a sign.
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onshye1
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katie 7725,
The bible says that on the day of judgement, people who say there is no god (or is not sure) will be without excuse to stand before god. Because god puts his undeniable evidence of his existence in all life forms and in his creation in the universe, so that we are without excuse on that day.
the bible says that the wise will see the undeniable evidence, and admit in their hearts that there is a god. The bible says only fools will say in their hearts there is no god.
That's what the holy bible (god's word) says.
The bible says that on the day of judgement, people who say there is no god (or is not sure) will be without excuse to stand before god. Because god puts his undeniable evidence of his existence in all life forms and in his creation in the universe, so that we are without excuse on that day.
the bible says that the wise will see the undeniable evidence, and admit in their hearts that there is a god. The bible says only fools will say in their hearts there is no god.
That's what the holy bible (god's word) says.
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