What is it to be a True Believer?

[timothyu]

Reality contradicts the flood story,
if you seek a contradiction.

Not if what constituted their concept of the world was restricted to the Mediterranean basin

 

[Astrid]

Not if what constituted their concept of the world was restricted to the Mediterranean basin

How does that help?

You think Mt Ararat, 2.5 miles high, went underwater in a
local flood?

The story at no point is contradicted by reality?

Shirley you’re joking!

 

[Astrid]

Well, there are those in the religion who advance the deceit, and those who are captive to it. Where they all align is up to them, and not for me to say as I don't know every heart and am not God. What men have made of Gods work is what they have done. I don't need to be holy to see and point out the contradictions in the matter, which are essentially self evident. I'm curious as to why you think I must be holy to examine and reject what you propose, and you needn't be holy to embrace and propose it. Clearly the fabricators of the religion aren't holy as what they have done to it is anything but. I don't question God or the bible. I question what men have done to it, and the religion they've drawn up from it. It seems a trespass to me for wicked men to take up the holy bible and make of it what seems them good. And then pretend to do Gods work. From my perspective it is akin to a horde of heathens ransacking a temple. There is your unholiness, regardless their assumed roles, one with a staff, another holding a book, another in a robe, and so forth. Where is the glory and honor to God in this self serving and self glorifying display. Do you think that God is pleased to be told who will be his servants as if he had no say in the matter. Or pleased to be a hostage to gross trespass. God lives. The bible is true. And the religion of Christianity is chaos by its own doings. Yet God suffers it to be so, just as he suffers all people everywhere to do what they do.

Those who have been deceived, conned, never want to
believe it could happen to them.

What makes you so different?

 

[Astrid]

I am no different. The charity of the living God has caused me to know that my true life is in his spirit rather than in myself or my life alone.

So you are different coz god told you different.
Billions of others are deceived, but not you.
Or, vastly more likely, it’s all in your head.

 

[Astrid]

The flood is irrelevant in that regard. The bible testifies of God. It may be that mankind was limited to an area as opposed to the whole globe. And the flood killed them all locally. So they only needed the local wildlife population on the ark to repopulate the area after the flood resided. I don't really know. The bible also says that God spoke to Job from a whirlwind. But from my perspective in reading the scene depicted, the whirlwind was the round and round debate the priests had with Job who had come to sit with him in his misery. Try reading it and then tell me it doesn't make your head spin. People misread the scriptures. In another place it is written that the scriptures are good for the man of God. Many take that to mean that reading and studying scriptures make one a man of God. But that isn't what it says. It says the scriptures are good for the man of God. In other words, if raw meat is good for a lion. It doesn't mean that eating raw meat will make you a lion. One must be either a lion or a man of God beforehand, for raw meat or scriptures to be good for you.

Let’s see..
a true believer believes tthe Bible because its Irrelevant that
some parts are just completely false.

Your “ local area” required water over two miles deep.

Even you don’t believe that happened.

How is this “ true” belief.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm trying to show bible based religion (which parades about as Christianity) for what it really is, which is essentially a gigantic 2000 year old hoax. It isn't authentic. It's a hostile takeover of what began as Jesus's peaceable gospel of repentance. And it has morphed into tens of thousands of differing denominations, each competing for the souls of men. It isn't the work of God. There is no salvation in it. And it holds 2.4 billion people captive in ignorance in its belly. Does it impress you?

I have Bible Based Religion. What else would I essentially base it on other than "the Bible"?

See, here's the thing. Your chosen terms are ambiguous, and you seem to define them at will, so you're not really saying anything discernible to me that I can corroborate among all that I've learned about Christianity over the past nearly 40 years.

As far as I can see, its you who is the one being intrusive here on CF, and so far I'm not seeing you say anything more than offering your own subjective banter. I'm waiting for you to say things I can investigate for scholarly substance and corroboration. Do you have anything to say in that vain?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, taking as a benchmark that God lives and the bible testimony is true. What men have made of it is something else. The evidence resides in the fact that that which parades as Christianity is comprised of tens of thousands of differing denominations, with no two alike due to their differing interpretations of the same bible. So the one true God isn't in the religion. It is the religion of man. Man is the God of it. The true God is left out of it. They have left the benchmark. The bible which teaches one God, one Christ, and one gospel, stands in silent testimony against the religion which teaches tens of thousands of different Gods, Christs, and gospels. There is your contradiction. Unless of course you are suggesting that the bible is wrong and the religion is right.

So, in your estimation, who should I be listening to? And are you suggesting that I toss my degrees and about 1,000 scholarly but diverse sources into the wastebin simply because they probably won't perfectly jive with your Mormonized evaluation?

 

[timothyu]

Stick with the outcasts , not the blind leading the blind with tradition. We were meant to live our lives contrary to the self servfing ways of man, societal outcasts, not some hybrid blend where denominations try to have it both ways..

 

[Injeun]

Let’s see..
a true believer believes tthe Bible because its Irrelevant that
some parts are just completely false.

Your “ local area” required water over two miles deep.

Even you don’t believe that happened.

How is this “ true” belief.

I believe God destroyed the wicked and saved the upright by means of a flood and an ark. I don't need scientific proof of that anymore than I need it to prove the existence of God. What I find appealing about the bible is that it establishes in testimony, our origin, our creation, our fall, and the means to our salvation. Besides, what does science know about the face of the land 4500 years ago when it can't conclude whether or not eating an egg is good for us today.

 

[Injeun]

So you are different coz god told you different.
Billions of others are deceived, but not you.
Or, vastly more likely, it’s all in your head.

I'm no different than anyone else in accountability to God. My knowledge that God lives comes from his knowing of me by his spirit. I haven't concluded, reasoned, or formulated that. I haven't formed an opinion of God from learning about God from scriptures. I don't believe God lives, but rather I know he does because of his spirit which he sent to know me. How else can one know God if not that one is first known by him. So no, it's not all in my head. It's in my whole heart, mind, body, and soul. What is in yours?

 

[timothyu]

Everybody fumbles, everybody seeks. Some like to control.

 

[Injeun]

Let me get this straight: You're not comparing traditional Christianity to your religion.

Then you say you're just looking at "traditional Christianity" (i.e. "it" in your second statement) for "what it is."

Ok then. By which sources are you making your evaluation about "traditional Christianity"?

I'm asking because so far I'm not seeing that you're presenting anything of evidential substance. In fact, your construal about how your conclusions are all somehow "self-evident" doesn't seem genuine or substantive to me.

From front to back, the bible teaches one gospel, one Christ and one God. But traditional Christianity teaches tens of thousands of different interpretations of it. So they teach tens of thousands of different gospels, Christs, and Gods. How can you not see the contradiction in that?

Here, read Peter: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 2Peter 20-21
Yet here is this multi headed creature posing as Christianity which is overrun with private interpretations of those holy scriptures. They are all different from one another. None of them are the same. And yet they call it Christianity as if they were united in Christ.

 

[timothyu]

And yet they call it Christianity as if they were united in Christ.

At one time it did give them credibility amongst their peers. What they missed out on was the fact they were to be outcasts in this world, not absorbed in its ways.

 

[Astrid]

I believe God destroyed the wicked and saved the upright by means of a flood and an ark. I don't need scientific proof of that anymore than I need it to prove the existence of God. What I find appealing about the bible is that it establishes in testimony, our origin, our creation, our fall, and the means to our salvation. Besides, what does science know about the face of the land 4500 years ago when it can't conclude whether or not eating an egg is good for us today.

So a True believer is someone who believes what he chooses to
believe, is completely uninformed about the science that
disproves world wide flood, and Don’t need no stimkin’
facts.

Then goes to preaching and trying to
denigrate what he knows nothing about.

True belief in action.

Really?
That’s how you want to debase a noble faith in front
of everyone?

 

[Astrid]

I'm no different than anyone else in accountability to God. My knowledge that God lives comes from his knowing of me by his spirit. I haven't concluded, reasoned, or formulated that. I haven't formed an opinion of God from learning about God from scriptures. I don't believe God lives, but rather I know he does because of his spirit which he sent to know me. How else can one know God if not that one is first known by him. So no, it's not all in my head. It's in my whole heart, mind, body, and soul. What is in yours?

So a true Chridtian is like you, not special but randomly
chosen of god to be directly innoculated with arcane knowledge.

Others make the same claim, for each conflicting
Christian sect, for LDS, Islam, and every other
religion ever. But unlike the chosen ones, they were not chosen.
and it’s all in their heads.

They too know they are right. But only the special
ones actually are.

Whats in my head isn’t a vain belief thst I get special
knowledge for free.

I’ve actually studied. A lot, about things of which thou
knoserh naught, bevause it takes ( shudder) effort!!
LNot just waiting around to be zapped
with “ knowledge”.
To disprove world wide flood is but Child’s play.

So as for what’s in the head of a flood believer who
has never questioned his uninformed beliefs,
never doubted his “wisdom”, and never bothered
to study?

I’d say,
” Not much”.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

From front to back, the bible teaches one gospel, one Christ and one God. But traditional Christianity teaches tens of thousands of different interpretations of it. So they teach tens of thousands of different gospels, Christs, and Gods. How can you not see the contradiction in that?

Why would I expect that all Christians everywhere and throughout all time would agree among themselves on every sentence found in both the Old Testament and/or the New Testament when the Bible wasn't given as a package deal?

At least, the Bible wasn't given as a package deal as it was allegedly for Muslims and for you Mormons.

Here, read Peter: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 2Peter 20-21

Well, that's all nice and dandy, but we have to assume, too, that the Critical Scholars of the Bible who think that 2 Peter isn't quite authentic aren't simply blowing smoke. But who knows for sure?

Moreover, even if 2 Peter is authentic and from the mouth or hand of Peter, then we have to ask what Peter meant in full by looking at various layers of contexts in the content of his letter. And unfortunately, the Biblical writers neither provided an intergalactic, handy dandy language interpreter, nor did they leave us with a mega-level, comprehensive theological treatise that teaches us all the theology we'd like to know or a manual on 'how to interpret ancient Jewish books all with the same identical understanding.'

Ah. but I see. Mormons have the "hidden key" of reconciliation. Or so they claim.

Yet here is this multi headed creature posing as Christianity which is overrun with private interpretations of those holy scriptures. They are all different from one another. None of them are the same. And yet they call it Christianity as if they were united in Christ.

All texts in the world, and especially all writing, are open to "interpretation." This is why universities offer classes on philology and hermeneutics and literary studies------------because the meaning of any texts from anywhere isn't, by any necessity, open to self-evident conformity of understanding.

........ for instance, I have little reason to think that Adam and Eve were real historical people, and my understanding here is due to the fact that science (or the sciences, really) plays a part in "how" I read the various biblical writings.


And here's the rub: I'm still going to call my own approach and understanding of the Bible, "Christianity," and I'll continue to do so whether you Mormons like it or not.

 

[Astrid]

Why worship a God you don't know when you can worship the image of the one whose image you've constructed and with whom you are familiar? If that is Christianity for the sake of worship, then love is love whether it is love of evil or good. John, in Revelation said he saw an angel bring the everlasting gospel to mankind. Then he saw an angel in following declare that Babylon has fallen. Where in traditional Christianity has an angel delivered the everlasting gospel to mankind. The only one I'm aware of is the one who delivered the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith.

Strange new meaning for the word “ aware”.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Why worship a God you don't know when you can worship the image of the one whose image you've constructed and with whom you are familiar? If that is Christianity for the sake of worship, then love is love whether it is love of evil or good. John, in Revelation said he saw an angel bring the everlasting gospel to mankind. Then he saw an angel in following declare that Babylon has fallen. Where in traditional Christianity has an angel delivered the everlasting gospel to mankind. The only one I'm aware of is the one who delivered the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith.

Are you insinuating that I, myself, don't know God? Who told you I don't know Him?

 

[FreeinChrist]

ADVISOR HAT

This thread is off topic to this particular forum. IF you have questions about Christianity, then the place to ask is Exploring Christianity.

This is in the Statement of Purpose for the Ethics & Morality forum:

"General Apologetics: This is not a forum where Christians are asked to defend their faith against objections and criticism from non-believers."

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