TheStudent

It's my position, the scriptures do not dictate what faith will be, merely faciliate that a faith in God and Jesus would be. The fact there be an enourmous variety of segregated faiths in christianity is to prove the scriptures mean differing things to differing people. Your particular version of faith dictates a degree of submission I see as inhuman and severe. Your faith asserts only by that submission can one escape eternal damnation, whereas I reason ones choice must be free. Also, in particular, I believe righteousness is an integral part of what sincere belief in Jesus means. Your faith does not.

What it means is my knowledge and trust in God and Jesus is unique, not decided by the churches, but neither entirely seperate from them. If you only see your own version of belief as the only valid one, then no, I'm not your type of christian. btw: Ovedya You should not decide you can command people....I answer as I choose.

OneLight: You would most likely not understand my answer, but I'll offer some of it. From a rather large volume of insights and many years of reasoning, it occurs to me Jesus would be God incarnate, given to the crucifiction as by that God's admits to and atones for the sinful character humankind is and which it is responsible for to be. The sin of Adam and Eve is the sin of God, and death is the consequence of sin. Our embrace of the crucifiction is our acceptance of God's apology, and in kind our admission of shame and regret of our sins against one another. In this, God and humankind are reconciled, though that is not fully realized until all humankind are reconciled and compensated, which can only occur when creation is ended.

Soften up pokemaughan, please. Pitting belief against belief is not the way, but attaining knowledge is. An intolerant and closed-minded allegiance to a scripture humanly written, though sometimes Holy guided, is at the root of the atheists' arguement. Blind assertions do not serve to evidence a healthy person, and christianity is in dire needs of more health! In the circumstance where so much is unknown, it's important to respect belief is akin to opinion and opinions are NOT knowledge. Opinions can be wrong, and it's more reasonable one would hold their opinions with that in mind. The protestant faith is one body of opinion whilst the Roman Catholic faith is another. Both cannot be wholely true, and so the contribution each can make to the whole purpose of our knowledge of God altogether is most served by healthy fact-based discussion and sharing. As it is, there are very very very few which do infact possess the genuine witness and knowledge of the Soul and the Eternal Soul God is. Among those few, there are even less which go in search of greater truths and understanding, but content themselves instead with the claims of their own faith. I am not an enemy to christianity, but I am a devotion to the Truth, and I work everyday to find more answers to those questions which God and right and wrong and such are.

The word belief is more appropriate for they which have not a knowledge of God. I have a multitidue of personal witnesses and experiences of God which allow me to profess a knowledge of God, though in no sense an authoritative nor complete knowledge. They are surely priviledged and Holy, and are the basis for my life now, yet I am more a seeker than a submitter and my devotion to the Truths I can see must always temper my decisions. My current views concerning Jesus are more established from his own direct statements in the Gospels, and not necessarily what protestant faith supposes him to be.

In my simple view, given the circumstance no decisive proofs one way or the other exist as to the being or non-being of God, they which decide God not exist doso merely from their desire God not exist. Those devoted to knowledge would stand undecided, relative to one not having their own personal witness of God. It's interesting, science derives from personal witness and employs the concensus of testimonies to validate it's assertions of knowledge. As it happens, there be also honest and genuine testimonies of ones own personal witness of the Soul of God or such, and they also may share the likeness of description which concensus is. In fairness, by such concensus each share a valid place as knowledge.

I rather understand the genuine intent is to refer to humankind's LIKENESS to God. I see the use of the word 'image' as a failed translation. btw: it's not the idea everything whatsoever in both the Old and New Testaments are of God's will and guided authorship, but that it's contributing writers intend to assert what they are saying is God concerned. Some is important guidance and wisdom, some misses the 'mark'. Genesis has Adam and Eve as originally purely good and necessarily knowing eternal life, yet Eden is asserted a material life and cannot possible provide for eternal living. (matter is defined by it's limit, relative to the eternal and infinite.)