starflyer59 said:
Or maybe it's when people feel great pain, they have to imagine this higher being in them to lift themselves up. It could be just that, within them and not real.
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Some questions for you all and my story...
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Or maybe it's when people feel great pain, they have to imagine this higher being in them to lift themselves up. It could be just that, within them and not real.
Hello, I'm a friend of Wayne's from another forum, and a former Christian (Roman Catholic) as well. I actually left the church because of it's stance on ity, which is perhaps a story for another time. But for now, I would like to pose some questions of my own.
1. I am by no means a Bible scholar, but I believe the New Testament, specifically the four Gospels, make no direct allusion to the sinfullness of ity, and comes mostly from the Old Testament. My question is this: Why do Christians keep some laws from the OT, but not others? Old Terstament law required that if a man was caught raping a virgin, he would have to make her his wife. What makes some laws worth following, but not others?
2. Why do Christians believe is such a gift from God? What makes a sacred gift from God, as compared to other natural bodily functions?
3. Why are "misuses" of claimed to be wrong because they are unnatural? Many studies have shown such behaviors as ity and ion common in other primates, specifically monkeys and chimpanzees. And with multiple partners in the animal kingdom is not only considered natural, but as nevessities for species survival. Also, even if these acts are unnatural, how does that make them necessarily wrong? No other living creature has ever used toliet paper or cooked their food, which are now necessary practices of human life.
Again, like Wayne I am not trying to be anything but courtious, and I am open to all responses.
1. I am by no means a Bible scholar, but I believe the New Testament, specifically the four Gospels, make no direct allusion to the sinfullness of ity, and comes mostly from the Old Testament. My question is this: Why do Christians keep some laws from the OT, but not others? Old Terstament law required that if a man was caught raping a virgin, he would have to make her his wife. What makes some laws worth following, but not others?
2. Why do Christians believe is such a gift from God? What makes a sacred gift from God, as compared to other natural bodily functions?
3. Why are "misuses" of claimed to be wrong because they are unnatural? Many studies have shown such behaviors as ity and ion common in other primates, specifically monkeys and chimpanzees. And with multiple partners in the animal kingdom is not only considered natural, but as nevessities for species survival. Also, even if these acts are unnatural, how does that make them necessarily wrong? No other living creature has ever used toliet paper or cooked their food, which are now necessary practices of human life.
Again, like Wayne I am not trying to be anything but courtious, and I am open to all responses.
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The difference between rejecting your parents and questioning the existence of god is huge. We know our parents exist because they are in our lives, right their in front of us most the time. Their is no doubt my parents are real beings in my life.
Sure, but essentially I was just making an analogy based on the presupposition that God is real rather than making the comparison between the two. I was simply trying to point out how we may appear to God in our unwillingness to to extend anything to Him.
How did he reveal himself? And as I said before, my heart is open.
I can do my best to explain it but something like that cannot really be properly explained in words.
Basically people go through things where maybe they convince themselves something is God because they are looking for signs of God. Maybe they pray for money and they get an unexpected check in the mail. Just an example. They assume God has answered their prayer. For people like you and me that's not good enough. We know it could be complete coincidence and the individual is just trying to look for reasons to see God in things.
I found myself getting answers to pretty much all my prayers, when the prayers themselves were in line with God's will. Many times well above and beyond what I was praying for. For a long time this wasn't good enough for me, when I would get answers to prayers I would rarely if ever attribute it to God, I would simply tell myself "that worked out well."
Being generally emotional at church or at a christian rally also wasn't good enough for me. Some people also attribute this to God, but people like you and me can simply see that the environment created in these places can manipulate people into becoming very emotional even if they don't usually behave that way.
These types of typical things people use to describe God's presence were never good enough for me, and I get the impression they wouldn't be good enough for you either.
So what it is we expect? God to come down on a cloud and sit and chat with us? To hear God's voice to ring crystal clear in our heads telling us what to do? If that happened most of society would call us crazy and we might just assume we are delusional as well.
So it appears even seeing or hearing God isn't even good enough. So what exactly does it take for someone to believe? Well for some people it's easy. They just do. It just makes sense to them and they choose it. Choosing christianity is no better or worse a choice than any other belief one may choose. The important thing is that they are honest with themselves. If you are completely honest with yourself, and I think this really requires laying aside your pride, you can't go wrong.
Now for me, I found that I had to start living in accordance with God's will. What this means is that I know from studying the bible what I should and should not be doing in my life. For a long time I wasn't willing to give up many things that gave me personal pleasure but we're taking away from my relationship with God. I was essentially living just to please myself and make myself happy. This is never what God wants. And the more I tried to do this, the more unhappy I would find myself anyway. This often happens. The reason I believe is because people who live their life to please themselves, to make themselves happy start expecting things.
We really have no right to expect anything from this life. When we start expecting things we start getting upset when we don't get the things we want. Being a christian has taught me to not expect anything from life but to simply to appreciate the things I do have and since learning this I have found peace. I enjoy life to it's fullest now because I can never be disappointed, and I generally don't even get stressed out no matter how bad anything gets.
Now getting to the point of God's presence, for me, when I started living in accordance with God's will and really started to try one day things completely changed for me and I still remember it.
For the longest time, I never had any desire to read the bible. I'm talking over 10 years. I read it from time to time because I thought it would bring me closer to God, and it never really did.
I'll tell you that you can be saved and never be baptized by the holy spirit. Well one day I was baptized by the holy spirit and not sure how or why but it changed my life. I had a desire to read the bible that did not seem to be my own, and when I read the bible my perception of it completely changed. It really did become like God was talking to me, rather than I was just reading the words and trying to figure out what it all meant.
It became like the words were God's words and he was speaking them directly to my heart. Along with I felt a physical transformation. A very tangible sensation of euphoria that I can't really explain. I've only experienced this when reading the bible.
Now I've done lots of drugs as a teenager, marijuana, pcp, mushrooms and every drink in the book. I can tell you with complete honesty I've never had a high that was even comparable to what I've felt though reading the bible and praying. Getting high on a drug is a very tangible thing, we know we're not imagining it, it's a chemical alteration that affects us physically. What I've experienced in reading the bible and through prayer is even more tangible than that, so I have no reason to believe I'm fooling myself.
I also started to have a desire to show kindness to others, strangers on the street or people I knew that I never had before. Again, all these things did not at all seem to be coming from me, oddly enough I almost felt there was a foreign presence in control of me which sounds strange but it was more of in a comforting way.
Now I know in my heart I never would have experienced these things if I was trying to find God because I wanted to have some euphoric experience, which is why I'm hesitant to even share such things with people. I only found them because I had faith that God was real, I wanted to believe in Him, I desired His presence and the bible tells us God wants us to really desire His presence. And when I learned that part of that was simply swallowing my pride and being obediant to God's commands, giving Him the chance to reveal Himself to me, that's when God did. On His own terms.
You asked before how I define faith, well you could define it this way.
Faith is not believing the person behind you will catch you when you fall, faith is the actual act of falling.
Honestly this is the best I can give you, it's the truth and I believe if you are searching for God in reality it is God that is calling you. I hope you find Him but that's your choice, God can't make anybody believe in Him, He won't. He won't make anyone love Him either. If you really want to find out if God is real give Him the time of day first, and see where that takes you.
God bless and good luck.
Or maybe it's when people feel great pain, they have to imagine this higher being in them to lift themselves up. It could be just that, within them and not real.
Sure, but essentially I was just making an analogy based on the presupposition that God is real rather than making the comparison between the two. I was simply trying to point out how we may appear to God in our unwillingness to to extend anything to Him.
How did he reveal himself? And as I said before, my heart is open.
I can do my best to explain it but something like that cannot really be properly explained in words.
Basically people go through things where maybe they convince themselves something is God because they are looking for signs of God. Maybe they pray for money and they get an unexpected check in the mail. Just an example. They assume God has answered their prayer. For people like you and me that's not good enough. We know it could be complete coincidence and the individual is just trying to look for reasons to see God in things.
I found myself getting answers to pretty much all my prayers, when the prayers themselves were in line with God's will. Many times well above and beyond what I was praying for. For a long time this wasn't good enough for me, when I would get answers to prayers I would rarely if ever attribute it to God, I would simply tell myself "that worked out well."
Being generally emotional at church or at a christian rally also wasn't good enough for me. Some people also attribute this to God, but people like you and me can simply see that the environment created in these places can manipulate people into becoming very emotional even if they don't usually behave that way.
These types of typical things people use to describe God's presence were never good enough for me, and I get the impression they wouldn't be good enough for you either.
So what it is we expect? God to come down on a cloud and sit and chat with us? To hear God's voice to ring crystal clear in our heads telling us what to do? If that happened most of society would call us crazy and we might just assume we are delusional as well.
So it appears even seeing or hearing God isn't even good enough. So what exactly does it take for someone to believe? Well for some people it's easy. They just do. It just makes sense to them and they choose it. Choosing christianity is no better or worse a choice than any other belief one may choose. The important thing is that they are honest with themselves. If you are completely honest with yourself, and I think this really requires laying aside your pride, you can't go wrong.
Now for me, I found that I had to start living in accordance with God's will. What this means is that I know from studying the bible what I should and should not be doing in my life. For a long time I wasn't willing to give up many things that gave me personal pleasure but we're taking away from my relationship with God. I was essentially living just to please myself and make myself happy. This is never what God wants. And the more I tried to do this, the more unhappy I would find myself anyway. This often happens. The reason I believe is because people who live their life to please themselves, to make themselves happy start expecting things.
We really have no right to expect anything from this life. When we start expecting things we start getting upset when we don't get the things we want. Being a christian has taught me to not expect anything from life but to simply to appreciate the things I do have and since learning this I have found peace. I enjoy life to it's fullest now because I can never be disappointed, and I generally don't even get stressed out no matter how bad anything gets.
Now getting to the point of God's presence, for me, when I started living in accordance with God's will and really started to try one day things completely changed for me and I still remember it.
For the longest time, I never had any desire to read the bible. I'm talking over 10 years. I read it from time to time because I thought it would bring me closer to God, and it never really did.
I'll tell you that you can be saved and never be baptized by the holy spirit. Well one day I was baptized by the holy spirit and not sure how or why but it changed my life. I had a desire to read the bible that did not seem to be my own, and when I read the bible my perception of it completely changed. It really did become like God was talking to me, rather than I was just reading the words and trying to figure out what it all meant.
It became like the words were God's words and he was speaking them directly to my heart. Along with I felt a physical transformation. A very tangible sensation of euphoria that I can't really explain. I've only experienced this when reading the bible.
Now I've done lots of drugs as a teenager, marijuana, pcp, mushrooms and every drink in the book. I can tell you with complete honesty I've never had a high that was even comparable to what I've felt though reading the bible and praying. Getting high on a drug is a very tangible thing, we know we're not imagining it, it's a chemical alteration that affects us physically. What I've experienced in reading the bible and through prayer is even more tangible than that, so I have no reason to believe I'm fooling myself.
I also started to have a desire to show kindness to others, strangers on the street or people I knew that I never had before. Again, all these things did not at all seem to be coming from me, oddly enough I almost felt there was a foreign presence in control of me which sounds strange but it was more of in a comforting way.
Now I know in my heart I never would have experienced these things if I was trying to find God because I wanted to have some euphoric experience, which is why I'm hesitant to even share such things with people. I only found them because I had faith that God was real, I wanted to believe in Him, I desired His presence and the bible tells us God wants us to really desire His presence. And when I learned that part of that was simply swallowing my pride and being obediant to God's commands, giving Him the chance to reveal Himself to me, that's when God did. On His own terms.
You asked before how I define faith, well you could define it this way.
Faith is not believing the person behind you will catch you when you fall, faith is the actual act of falling.
Honestly this is the best I can give you, it's the truth and I believe if you are searching for God in reality it is God that is calling you. I hope you find Him but that's your choice, God can't make anybody believe in Him, He won't. He won't make anyone love Him either. If you really want to find out if God is real give Him the time of day first, and see where that takes you.
God bless and good luck.
Or maybe it's when people feel great pain, they have to imagine this higher being in them to lift themselves up. It could be just that, within them and not real.
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0
1. Where's the proof God exists?devotee said:
How do you define God? My definition is : everything; atoms, energy, substance, form. My view is supported by the bible: I am everywhere, the Hindus represented this with many heads/eyes, scientists talk about atoms., sufis and islam with many names. My view is different labels same thing.
Everything is what you personally believe God is, but not everyone holds that opinion, and their is no scientific proof.
2. How can you believe in God if there isn't proof?
This world and universe we live in is too amazing, and nter-woven for me to think that life has no meaning other than to exist and then to not.
You come to the conclusion that some higher power must be in charge of the complex universe, is this maybe because the human mind can't comprehend science and reality just being that complex in the first place? To just say, it has to be God, is based on no proof and I personally don't see how it makes any sense to simply jump to that conclusion.
3. Is homosexuality wrong?
According to who? Me - I don't think you're wrong. God, - well I can only speak for myself, all else is my interpretation. With my perception of God there are more important things in life than who you are loving/having sex with. Like respect, equality, compassion, mercy, tolerance, he;ping the downtrodden.
Do you just write off the building evidence that the Bible passages involving homosexuality were translated wrong over time?
4. Should our government legalize gay marriage?
Me thinks yes, if two people want to show the world their committment to each other, they should be treated equally as the rest of us. For me it is about equality, not sex.
Agreed.
We should get the same treatment as other couples, just because some people think being gay is a sin should have no say in if we get equal rights under the law. 5. Do you believe being judgemental and hateful toward gays is wrong?
Definitly. I am not a Christian but I believe in equality, non-judgement, acceptance of individual differences. Hate and judgement are about the self, it is not why we are here I believe.
I wish more religious people were this compassionate.
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Sure, but essentially I was just making an analogy based on the presupposition that God is real rather than making the comparison between the two. I was simply trying to point out how we may appear to God in our unwillingness to to extend anything to Him.
Objectively looking at religion and the world, you can't automatically believe God exists. It's something I honestly believe you have to seek out. The probability that God doesn't exist is there, so how is it logical to just automatcally 100% believe God exists?
I can do my best to explain it but something like that cannot really be properly explained in words.
Basically people go through things where maybe they convince themselves something is God because they are looking for signs of God. Maybe they pray for money and they get an unexpected check in the mail. Just an example. They assume God has answered their prayer. For people like you and me that's not good enough. We know it could be complete coincidence and the individual is just trying to look for reasons to see God in things.
I found myself getting answers to pretty much all my prayers, when the prayers themselves were in line with God's will. Many times well above and beyond what I was praying for. For a long time this wasn't good enough for me, when I would get answers to prayers I would rarely if ever attribute it to God, I would simply tell myself "that worked out well."
Being generally emotional at church or at a christian rally also wasn't good enough for me. Some people also attribute this to God, but people like you and me can simply see that the environment created in these places can manipulate people into becoming very emotional even if they don't usually behave that way.
These types of typical things people use to describe God's presence were never good enough for me, and I get the impression they wouldn't be good enough for you either.
So what it is we expect? God to come down on a cloud and sit and chat with us? To hear God's voice to ring crystal clear in our heads telling us what to do? If that happened most of society would call us crazy and we might just assume we are delusional as well.
So it appears even seeing or hearing God isn't even good enough. So what exactly does it take for someone to believe? Well for some people it's easy. They just do. It just makes sense to them and they choose it. Choosing christianity is no better or worse a choice than any other belief one may choose. The important thing is that they are honest with themselves. If you are completely honest with yourself, and I think this really requires laying aside your pride, you can't go wrong.
Now for me, I found that I had to start living in accordance with God's will. What this means is that I know from studying the bible what I should and should not be doing in my life. For a long time I wasn't willing to give up many things that gave me personal pleasure but we're taking away from my relationship with God. I was essentially living just to please myself and make myself happy. This is never what God wants. And the more I tried to do this, the more unhappy I would find myself anyway. This often happens. The reason I believe is because people who live their life to please themselves, to make themselves happy start expecting things.
We really have no right to expect anything from this life. When we start expecting things we start getting upset when we don't get the things we want. Being a christian has taught me to not expect anything from life but to simply to appreciate the things I do have and since learning this I have found peace. I enjoy life to it's fullest now because I can never be disappointed, and I generally don't even get stressed out no matter how bad anything gets.
Now getting to the point of God's presence, for me, when I started living in accordance with God's will and really started to try one day things completely changed for me and I still remember it.
For the longest time, I never had any desire to read the bible. I'm talking over 10 years. I read it from time to time because I thought it would bring me closer to God, and it never really did.
I'll tell you that you can be saved and never be baptized by the holy spirit. Well one day I was baptized by the holy spirit and not sure how or why but it changed my life. I had a desire to read the bible that did not seem to be my own, and when I read the bible my perception of it completely changed. It really did become like God was talking to me, rather than I was just reading the words and trying to figure out what it all meant.
It became like the words were God's words and he was speaking them directly to my heart. Along with I felt a physical transformation. A very tangible sensation of euphoria that I can't really explain. I've only experienced this when reading the bible.
Now I've done lots of drugs as a teenager, marijuana, pcp, mushrooms and every drink in the book. I can tell you with complete honesty I've never had a high that was even comparable to what I've felt though reading the bible and praying. Getting high on a drug is a very tangible thing, we know we're not imagining it, it's a chemical alteration that affects us physically. What I've experienced in reading the bible and through prayer is even more tangible than that, so I have no reason to believe I'm fooling myself.
I also started to have a desire to show kindness to others, strangers on the street or people I knew that I never had before. Again, all these things did not at all seem to be coming from me, oddly enough I almost felt there was a foreign presence in control of me which sounds strange but it was more of in a comforting way.
Now I know in my heart I never would have experienced these things if I was trying to find God because I wanted to have some euphoric experience, which is why I'm hesitant to even share such things with people. I only found them because I had faith that God was real, I wanted to believe in Him, I desired His presence and the bible tells us God wants us to really desire His presence. And when I learned that part of that was simply swallowing my pride and being obediant to God's commands, giving Him the chance to reveal Himself to me, that's when God did. On His own terms.
You asked before how I define faith, well you could define it this way.
Faith is not believing the person behind you will catch you when you fall, faith is the actual act of falling.
Honestly this is the best I can give you, it's the truth and I believe if you are searching for God in reality it is God that is calling you. I hope you find Him but that's your choice, God can't make anybody believe in Him, He won't. He won't make anyone love Him either. If you really want to find out if God is real give Him the time of day first, and see where that takes you.
God bless and good luck.
I honestly think it's great you've found something in your life so powerful. I don't know if it's God I'm necessarily seeking, but it's something. I guess you could say it's the "truth" I'm seeking. I don't feel hole or complete when it comes to my spirituality and beliefs. Thankyou for sharing your story.
Objectively looking at religion and the world, you can't automatically believe God exists. It's something I honestly believe you have to seek out. The probability that God doesn't exist is there, so how is it logical to just automatcally 100% believe God exists?
I can do my best to explain it but something like that cannot really be properly explained in words.
Basically people go through things where maybe they convince themselves something is God because they are looking for signs of God. Maybe they pray for money and they get an unexpected check in the mail. Just an example. They assume God has answered their prayer. For people like you and me that's not good enough. We know it could be complete coincidence and the individual is just trying to look for reasons to see God in things.
I found myself getting answers to pretty much all my prayers, when the prayers themselves were in line with God's will. Many times well above and beyond what I was praying for. For a long time this wasn't good enough for me, when I would get answers to prayers I would rarely if ever attribute it to God, I would simply tell myself "that worked out well."
Being generally emotional at church or at a christian rally also wasn't good enough for me. Some people also attribute this to God, but people like you and me can simply see that the environment created in these places can manipulate people into becoming very emotional even if they don't usually behave that way.
These types of typical things people use to describe God's presence were never good enough for me, and I get the impression they wouldn't be good enough for you either.
So what it is we expect? God to come down on a cloud and sit and chat with us? To hear God's voice to ring crystal clear in our heads telling us what to do? If that happened most of society would call us crazy and we might just assume we are delusional as well.
So it appears even seeing or hearing God isn't even good enough. So what exactly does it take for someone to believe? Well for some people it's easy. They just do. It just makes sense to them and they choose it. Choosing christianity is no better or worse a choice than any other belief one may choose. The important thing is that they are honest with themselves. If you are completely honest with yourself, and I think this really requires laying aside your pride, you can't go wrong.
Now for me, I found that I had to start living in accordance with God's will. What this means is that I know from studying the bible what I should and should not be doing in my life. For a long time I wasn't willing to give up many things that gave me personal pleasure but we're taking away from my relationship with God. I was essentially living just to please myself and make myself happy. This is never what God wants. And the more I tried to do this, the more unhappy I would find myself anyway. This often happens. The reason I believe is because people who live their life to please themselves, to make themselves happy start expecting things.
We really have no right to expect anything from this life. When we start expecting things we start getting upset when we don't get the things we want. Being a christian has taught me to not expect anything from life but to simply to appreciate the things I do have and since learning this I have found peace. I enjoy life to it's fullest now because I can never be disappointed, and I generally don't even get stressed out no matter how bad anything gets.
Now getting to the point of God's presence, for me, when I started living in accordance with God's will and really started to try one day things completely changed for me and I still remember it.
For the longest time, I never had any desire to read the bible. I'm talking over 10 years. I read it from time to time because I thought it would bring me closer to God, and it never really did.
I'll tell you that you can be saved and never be baptized by the holy spirit. Well one day I was baptized by the holy spirit and not sure how or why but it changed my life. I had a desire to read the bible that did not seem to be my own, and when I read the bible my perception of it completely changed. It really did become like God was talking to me, rather than I was just reading the words and trying to figure out what it all meant.
It became like the words were God's words and he was speaking them directly to my heart. Along with I felt a physical transformation. A very tangible sensation of euphoria that I can't really explain. I've only experienced this when reading the bible.
Now I've done lots of drugs as a teenager, marijuana, pcp, mushrooms and every drink in the book. I can tell you with complete honesty I've never had a high that was even comparable to what I've felt though reading the bible and praying. Getting high on a drug is a very tangible thing, we know we're not imagining it, it's a chemical alteration that affects us physically. What I've experienced in reading the bible and through prayer is even more tangible than that, so I have no reason to believe I'm fooling myself.
I also started to have a desire to show kindness to others, strangers on the street or people I knew that I never had before. Again, all these things did not at all seem to be coming from me, oddly enough I almost felt there was a foreign presence in control of me which sounds strange but it was more of in a comforting way.
Now I know in my heart I never would have experienced these things if I was trying to find God because I wanted to have some euphoric experience, which is why I'm hesitant to even share such things with people. I only found them because I had faith that God was real, I wanted to believe in Him, I desired His presence and the bible tells us God wants us to really desire His presence. And when I learned that part of that was simply swallowing my pride and being obediant to God's commands, giving Him the chance to reveal Himself to me, that's when God did. On His own terms.
You asked before how I define faith, well you could define it this way.
Faith is not believing the person behind you will catch you when you fall, faith is the actual act of falling.
Honestly this is the best I can give you, it's the truth and I believe if you are searching for God in reality it is God that is calling you. I hope you find Him but that's your choice, God can't make anybody believe in Him, He won't. He won't make anyone love Him either. If you really want to find out if God is real give Him the time of day first, and see where that takes you.
God bless and good luck.
I honestly think it's great you've found something in your life so powerful. I don't know if it's God I'm necessarily seeking, but it's something. I guess you could say it's the "truth" I'm seeking. I don't feel hole or complete when it comes to my spirituality and beliefs. Thankyou for sharing your story.
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Chris Norwood
Active Member
I would not call myself a "Bible Scholar" either, but I'll try to give you my understanding of this often confusing topic. First of all, you don't need to read things into the Bible that aren't there. For instance, the example you gave about the virgin getting "raped", here is the passage I believe you're talking about:HoboJoe said:
"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins." -Exodus 22:16-17
No where here does it say this is about rape. This is basically talking about any case where a man has premarital sex with a woman. Since it specifically mentions the man "seducing" the woman, it may be a specifically targeting cases where a more experienced male "aggressor" is taking advantage of a more innocent woman, but then again, that's pretty much what it would have always been like in that culture. During that time period and coming out of their captivity to the Egyptians and that cultural influence, women were basically considered property, and potential husbands would have to pay a "bride price" to a woman's father in order to marry her. If a woman had been "spoiled" by not being a virgin, that would be scandalous and would make it less likely that a man would want to do so. So anyway, this command was there to prevent men from sleeping around with unmarried women, because now they would would have to get married if discovered. And note also that there was a clause that allowed the woman's father to keep his daughter from marrying the man (presumably if he had taken advantage of her or was just an undesirable person), but he would still have to pay the bride price (so there was still a penalty).
I know that you didn't really care about this particular example, but I wanted to show you that what people tell you that the Bible says is not always accurate. And also I wanted to get across that the most important part of such a command was the intent, not the actual "letter of the law". Because in our culture today, rarely do fathers make the decisions about who their daughters will marry, and (in western culture anyway) there is no such thing as a "bride price", so this law really has no direct application. Its meaning for us based on the law's "spirit", however, would be a couple of things: 1) sex is designed for to be enjoyed as part of a marriage relationship, and to engage in it outside of this relationship causes trouble, and 2) we should not take advantage of others (especially the innocent) whether it be a sexually or otherwise.
So that brings me to the point I want to make - the moral law established in the Old Testament is still applicable today. It should be read, however, considering the culture in which it was written and the circumstances the Israelites were in as well. For example, in our society it seems very barbaric to put people to death for all the things in the Old Testament that carried the death penalty. But you have to remember that the Israelites were a slave nation escaping from Egypt and travelling to the promissed land, and I'm sure that it was far more difficult to keep order than it would have been in an established society. Plus, there would have been no jails in a tent community, so there was no real way to imprison people who were a menace to society. So for crimes that truly threatened the society or the people's commitment to God, the penalty was to remove the threat before it "spread" to others.
Now, there is another kind of law in the Old Testament as well - those things that set the Israelites apart as the chosen people of God. For example, circumcision and dietary laws may have had some health benefit, but in reality had no moral benefit other than as a sign of their commitment (covenant) to God. When Jesus came, he established a "new covenant" that made these kinds of things unnecessary. So, when reading the Old Testament, ask yourself "Is this God telling me how he wants people to act towards HIm and others (moral law), or was it a command to set apart His chosen people (covenant law)?" In general, the moral law will stand while the covenant law has passed away.
I'll try to get to your other questions later, but I would like some more clarity on what #2 is asking. What gift from God are you talking about?
By the way, this is my 200th post!
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Some more questions I want to bring up:
~Is the Bible pure? It was written by dozen of humans, and translatted by thousands of scholars. All these people were sinners and like everyone had there biases. So then, why do alot of people think this book is pure law and not skewed with?
~Have you truely searched for your religious beliefs or have you just excepted what your family/community brought you up in? Is it ok to question and research all beliefs?
To me, it seems necessary to look at other beliefs than what your were brought up in. I think alot of people just find it easy and comfortable never to question anything. I also think alot of people fall into religion out of fear, fear is definitely something religion creates for people. The fear of going to hell haunted me for years. It's alot of pressure.
~Do you believe in the separation of church and state in the United States of America?
~Is the Bible pure? It was written by dozen of humans, and translatted by thousands of scholars. All these people were sinners and like everyone had there biases. So then, why do alot of people think this book is pure law and not skewed with?
~Have you truely searched for your religious beliefs or have you just excepted what your family/community brought you up in? Is it ok to question and research all beliefs?
To me, it seems necessary to look at other beliefs than what your were brought up in. I think alot of people just find it easy and comfortable never to question anything. I also think alot of people fall into religion out of fear, fear is definitely something religion creates for people. The fear of going to hell haunted me for years. It's alot of pressure.
~Do you believe in the separation of church and state in the United States of America?
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inHisgripkim
You Are The Salt And Light Of The World
WayneHughes said:
Hey to you:
I'm sorry that Christians and people have been judgemental. I am a Christian but it took me 40 years to become one. You have some knowledge of the Bible and understand the verse "Judge ye not lest ye be judged." It's unfortunate that some Christians overlook that and want to play God. God (Jesus) is the judge of eternity. Homosexuality has been around since ancient times. The bible views it as a sin. Well, who is without sin? We are all sinners. We try to walk the walk, but we fall off the path. We are not perfect. The point is to get back on the path which we will fall off again somewhere along the line.
I have had gay friends in college, and I did not judge nor will I. To judge is a sin. To play God is a sin.
My father was a geologist who believed in the big bang theory. The universe was caused by a big bang from gases. I asked my father how the gases got there if there was nothing in the first place. He didn't know.
How can the universe go on for infinity? How? If it stops. What is beyond it? It just can't stop. We are a miracle. Life is a miracle. The fact that you and I are here living, breathing, thinking, talking, writing and we have a past is a miracle. The cosmos and the eco systems are so complex. How does life, the cosmos, the ecos continue in all this complexity? What keeps the balance for life to exist? Atoms, quarks, ions, electrons all complex. There is an answer and science cannot answer it. God would be a good answer. God is, was, and always will be.
Took me along time to get to Christianity. But God as spoken to me and I have a testimony in the forum for "Testimony." It is called "The Sparrow." Because of my experiences explained in my testimony. I believe. I have the utmost Faith in Jesus. His Apostles (witnesses) died for Jesus. That is incredible in itself.
Because you are gay, don't let that keep you from truth. One can be gay and still love the Lord. We are all sinners until we come to Jesus, who died for our sins.
I don't think Jesus would want you to walk away and become a nonbeliever because you are gay. Jesus wants His children to come to Him period. We are sinners and we do the best we can and we continue to believe in the Lord because we love the Lord with all our heart and soul. Moses was a murderer. King David was a murderer. They found favor in God's eyes. Apostle Paul was a murderer. He found favor in God's eyes.
Faithfully,
InhisGripkim.
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"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even this eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." -- Rom 1:19-20
"I cannot see an atom, therefore I cannot believe in it, " says the student. The Professor then explains to the boy the observable effects of the movement of the atomic components, "what cannot be seen, was clearly seen by the atomic bomb." The boy continues to be stubborn and will not submit to the evidence. On examination day he flunks the course. He comes to the Professor and explains, but he is without excuse.
That which may be known of atoms and their parts is manifest, for physical investigation has revealed it. For the invisible things of atomic components are clearly seen, being understood by the effects that are manifest so that the student is without excuse.
God says no man has seen God at any time for God is light; and what light will shine upon light to reflect back to our eyes and reveal the invisible to us? But God has manifest Himself in nature.
"I cannot see an atom, therefore I cannot believe in it, " says the student. The Professor then explains to the boy the observable effects of the movement of the atomic components, "what cannot be seen, was clearly seen by the atomic bomb." The boy continues to be stubborn and will not submit to the evidence. On examination day he flunks the course. He comes to the Professor and explains, but he is without excuse.
That which may be known of atoms and their parts is manifest, for physical investigation has revealed it. For the invisible things of atomic components are clearly seen, being understood by the effects that are manifest so that the student is without excuse.
God says no man has seen God at any time for God is light; and what light will shine upon light to reflect back to our eyes and reveal the invisible to us? But God has manifest Himself in nature.
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Maranatha27
Senior Member
1. Where's the proof God exists?
I would first argue that you have never been a christian, only in name only. The seal of a christian is the Holy Spirit. God never gave the Holy Spirit to a believer and then took it away after the acension of Christ. Now I have no doubt God exists because I am a student of His Word. For example Jehovah states that he will regather his ancient people Israel back into the land they now posess. Even christians in unbelief mocked and stated this was a "pipe dream" at the start of the 20th century. The Bible predicted the unifcation of Europe in Daniel Chapters 2 and 7 in the last days. The Bible Predicts Russia and Iran leading a host against modern Israel in Ezk 38 & 39. A world gov't, church, monatary system, are these not in the works right now? The Bible in Daniel Chapter 9 states that a the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem by captives from Babylon, it will be exactly 483 years from that decree when Christ would die for you.
2. How can you believe in God if there isn't proof?
3. Is homosexuality wrong?
Yes Homosexual relations are a sin, just as fornication is a sin. What fruit does a homosexual relationship bare? You are not going to get your partner pregnant, the relationship doesn't produce life. It does however fulfill you lust. If a man is keeping you from Christ, thats a sad excuse.
4. Should our government legalize gay marriage?
No, marrage is between on man and one woman. They should not be penalized for choosing this lifestyle though. Civil unions seem fair. They will not put this on the ballots this Nov. because the majority of americans will vote no.
5. Do you believe being judgemental and hateful toward gays is wrong?
Yes
I would first argue that you have never been a christian, only in name only. The seal of a christian is the Holy Spirit. God never gave the Holy Spirit to a believer and then took it away after the acension of Christ. Now I have no doubt God exists because I am a student of His Word. For example Jehovah states that he will regather his ancient people Israel back into the land they now posess. Even christians in unbelief mocked and stated this was a "pipe dream" at the start of the 20th century. The Bible predicted the unifcation of Europe in Daniel Chapters 2 and 7 in the last days. The Bible Predicts Russia and Iran leading a host against modern Israel in Ezk 38 & 39. A world gov't, church, monatary system, are these not in the works right now? The Bible in Daniel Chapter 9 states that a the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem by captives from Babylon, it will be exactly 483 years from that decree when Christ would die for you.
2. How can you believe in God if there isn't proof?
3. Is homosexuality wrong?
Yes Homosexual relations are a sin, just as fornication is a sin. What fruit does a homosexual relationship bare? You are not going to get your partner pregnant, the relationship doesn't produce life. It does however fulfill you lust. If a man is keeping you from Christ, thats a sad excuse.
4. Should our government legalize gay marriage?
No, marrage is between on man and one woman. They should not be penalized for choosing this lifestyle though. Civil unions seem fair. They will not put this on the ballots this Nov. because the majority of americans will vote no.
5. Do you believe being judgemental and hateful toward gays is wrong?
Yes
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