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I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.Coder, are you seeking God or do you firmly believe He doesn't exist?
Hi Pgp, yet another voice from the darkness. If a group day and night never stops saying Holy, Holy, Holy, what is the minimum periodicity of the repetition? Once during the day and once during the night. Now they could say it more often, but not less.
Revelation does not point to rotation? Did you miss the part about "misses the point of their description." Do you not grasp that the four types refers to four capacities and functions?
Folks, again what we have here are pagans "assuming" an unlikely view, then claiming dogmatically that is the only view possible. And to what point? Since they are ostensibly "exploring Christianity.
I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.
Now, I don't have any reason to believe there is a god/gods because my experience tells me that we're physical beings in a physical world. There's no credible evidence of a supernatural realm. Prayer doesn't do anything - and furthermore, doesn't mean anything when it's being used for petty personal gain (like, "bless my son's soccer team") instead of the really important global issues. So I abstain from wasting my precious time on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but we're all atheists to somebody else's god. Maybe I'm a weak atheist.
What I'd really like to do is understand the concepts being presented by religion - specifically Christianity, since that's more familiar - and figure out whether there really is anything to it or not. As of now, I'm unconvinced. And people like "Van" and their sarcastic arrogance don't help convince me, especially when I can find four other Christians that contradict him with their Biblical interpretation and think they're equally right.
Huh?Hi Pgp, you know what the guy said when he opened the door? Darkness there and nothing more. May God Bless.
I'm not claiming now, nor have I ever claimed a grasp on absolute truth. God is something that - even while I was one of His biggest fans - I could never quite get a grasp on. It seems so simple, yet so very, very convoluted. Everyone has a different opinion, whether or not they base it off of the Bible. It's overload. It's like everybody's right, but everybody's wrong. So, for the present, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation, I stick to what I can process with my five senses. Can you blame me?the fact of the matter you are still on this forum questioning His existence and NOT refuting it
No. What I've been saying all along is that God's plan for mortals doesn't make sense to mortals. Had He gone about it in a way that human minds could look at it and say, "Oh, that's definitely a loving God at work there," then I don't know how we could have gotten to this point. Everything I've read in the Bible up to this point seems like the plot of a movie villain where it gets so complicated, it couldn't possibly succeed. It's a struggle that I'm losing.Don't you think if he did that though, 2000 more years pass and people go right back to where we are now?
Hi Pgp, you know what the guy said when he opened the door? Darkness there and nothing more. May God Bless.
Hi Pgp, I explained why the passage from Revelation 4 did not suggest mindless repetition, and you simply reasserted your assumption. You gave no indication of comprehension. Thus, darkness there and nothing more.
But since you bring up rules, you know the rule of only one non christian participating in a thread? Christianity speaks to those who judge others by one set of rules, and judge themselves by another.
It would be good to carry on the conversation about some of those issues, but one thing you'll have to live with here, unless it goes to a private conversation, is that you'll get a wide variety of responses from the naieve to the well considered to the downright loopy, and ranging from polite, respectful engagement to the arogant and perhaps even offensive, and you'll need to sift those yourself.I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.
Now, I don't have any reason to believe there is a god/gods because my experience tells me that we're physical beings in a physical world. There's no credible evidence of a supernatural realm. Prayer doesn't do anything - and furthermore, doesn't mean anything when it's being used for petty personal gain (like, "bless my son's soccer team") instead of the really important global issues. So I abstain from wasting my precious time on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but we're all atheists to somebody else's god. Maybe I'm a weak atheist.
What I'd really like to do is understand the concepts being presented by religion - specifically Christianity, since that's more familiar - and figure out whether there really is anything to it or not. As of now, I'm unconvinced. And people like "Van" and their sarcastic arrogance don't help convince me, especially when I can find four other Christians that contradict him with their Biblical interpretation and think they're equally right.
Not at all.I'm not claiming now, nor have I ever claimed a grasp on absolute truth. God is something that - even while I was one of His biggest fans - I could never quite get a grasp on. It seems so simple, yet so very, very convoluted. Everyone has a different opinion, whether or not they base it off of the Bible. It's overload. It's like everybody's right, but everybody's wrong. So, for the present, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation, I stick to what I can process with my five senses. Can you blame me?
Not at all.
But a couple of comments anyway:
1. If there is a creator-god, wouldn't one expect him/her to so far beyond our understanding that at best we can capture an imperfect, partial and distorted picture of him? And that a lot of the time those imperfect, partial and distorted pictures would contradict each other at least in part?
2. All of us have tended to come to the bible with cultural assumptions about who and what god is. And it's quite clear even from this thread that there is quite a bit of variation (and quite a bit of common ground) around. And then, at best, we might try to tweak our view of god to try to fit what we find in the bible, and find that doesn't work very well. Then we try to fit Jesus into that picture and find it doesn't work at all.
What we need to do (but it's challenging to manage) is dump all of our assumptions about god in the bin, and take "Jesus is God" not as a statement that tells us about Jesus, but a statement that tells us about God. To look at Jesus in his historical and religion context and find that what we begin to see is the image (still somewhat indirect) of a creator-God who makes sense and who is putting the world to rights, and is achieving that by putting us to rights - by restoring us as his image throughout creation.
They give you a book and tell you that it contains all the doctrines, tenets, creeds, and do's and don'ts Hang on to the box and play by the rules and it might increase the odds that you'll make to heaven. Free will? I'd like to see a concrete example.
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19through whom[d] also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you alsonot the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[e] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at God's right handwith angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
1. If there were simply a creator-god, then I would expect for it to have kick-started everything and then gone somewhere else to create something else. That's not a problem for me. I might even concede right here and now that that's a reasonable take, since there's still so much we don't know.But a couple of comments anyway:
1. If there is a creator-god, wouldn't one expect him/her to so far beyond our understanding that at best we can capture an imperfect, partial and distorted picture of him? And that a lot of the time those imperfect, partial and distorted pictures would contradict each other at least in part?
2. All of us have tended to come to the bible with cultural assumptions about who and what god is. And it's quite clear even from this thread that there is quite a bit of variation (and quite a bit of common ground) around. And then, at best, we might try to tweak our view of god to try to fit what we find in the bible, and find that doesn't work very well. Then we try to fit Jesus into that picture and find it doesn't work at all.
Okay so far.1. If there were simply a creator-god, then I would expect for it to have kick-started everything and then gone somewhere else to create something else. That's not a problem for me. I might even concede right here and now that that's a reasonable take, since there's still so much we don't know.
But...that's not the Biblical God. He's not an "it." He has a desire to have personal relationships with each and every one of us. He wants us to seek and eventually find Him.
Interferes is not the right idea. YHWH is not the distant god sometimes interfering, but constantly and intimitely involved in the ordinary as well as the exceptional.He interferes (according to the Bible) in the universe and causes things to happen or not happen.
Um, no. That's got more to do with gnostism than Judeo/Christianity. God's intention is not to whisk everyone off to somewhere else, but to restore us to be fully the image of God in and for a creation put right. God is fixing up the mess we've made of this world so that the veil between heaven and earth can be lifted.He created a place for good people to go, and a place for bad people to go.
What makes you think he is hiding.This is what I find very hard to grasp. If He wants a relationship with us, why hide?
I'll be quite honest and say I don't find atonement to be the most helpful model for understanding how Jesus death and resurrection works either. And that's what it is - a model to explain, not the event itself, and not the only model. Christus Victor I find a lot more helpful. That by coming at the climax of the story, by drawing the forces of evil upon himself and letting them do their worst - and coming out the other side he defeated them once and for all.2. The entire concept of atonement through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a concept that I just cannot grasp, no matter how hard I try.
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