So, you do not believe in free will then.
Yes I do, but not unrestricted. Man will not be allowed to destroy the planet and all life.
So god set up murderers and rapists to be trash then? Or are you going to mention demons as a cop-out?
They got where they are by giving in to evil too much I would suspect. Every man is a potential murderer, in fact if we hate our brother we are a murderer, even if the deed is not carried out.
Prayed for salvation ONCE?! Do not insult me my good man, I have been praying for that almost once a week for the past 6 years (how often and how regularly I pray for that has no consistency).
Good for you. Far as I know, He heard the first time though. Might want to include other stuff in the chat times with Him.
The only "once" is in a specific prayer you suggested I do. I pray for belief, which obviously I do not have.
Good for you. I think you are on the right track. Relax though, belief may not come as fast and large to us as you may have thought. Reading or hearing the word of God causes faith to grow. I guess there is a time before it grows when it may be too small to see
Lu 13:19 -It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.
Mr 9:24 - And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
I pray that the entity I view as nonexistent shows me that I am wrong, did you not understand the first time we talked about this?
Apparently not. But the funny thing is, that for me to be shown wrong, and probably a lot of other folks, it can take considerable time. I tend to cling to my notions to the bitter end. Like the same state past, which I think is a right notion...good luck getting me to dump that
I could have sworn you are someone who knows how long I have been seeking faith. Nevertheless, in case you aren't aware, despite never attaining belief in any deity, that has never stopped me from making honest attempts at contact.
Mt 7:7 -Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Mt 7:8 -For
every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Even earlier than 6 years ago, interested kid that I was, should all else have failed in some random endeavor, I would pray for help. Silly, childish things, like the return of a hopelessly lost toy, dropped under the stands at a hockey game, never to be seen again.
Mt 18:3 -And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I never believed anything would come of such prayers even when I was really young, but I was of the mindset that it couldn't hurt to try.
He heard.
I was a weirdly skeptical little kid, figured out Santa Claus wasn't real by age 4-5, much to my mother's dismay, the Tooth Fairy disproved when I lost a tooth in the middle of the night and put it under my pillow, only to of course wake up and find the tooth was still there. Little me did not appreciate the deception. I guess that is why I ended up always taking stuff like that with extreme skepticism. Life story over I guess with that, I shouldn't derail this thread.
The problem with teaching kids fables as truth is that they lose ability to some degree to differentiate truth from fable. I could see also how someone getting saved that comes from a totally atheist background might take awhile longer to grow in faith.