AlexanderJ

Our love is unreliable and often failing; His love is the Eternal Rock--it cannot fail.

The most important thing is not how much we love God but how much he loves us. Our love is a weak, pitiful thing compared to the Glory of His eternal Love.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:10

Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky

--Isaac Ben Nehoral

That is because people lean on their own understanding of what they believe scripture says instead of letting scripture speak for itself.

Feliz Navidad!

There is a correlation between watching porn and support for gay marriage among men,

It's not just a guy thing.

In the full sample, 42 percent of men and 47 percent of women agreed or strongly agreed that gay marriage should be legal.

However, something worthy to note is that just because someone agrees that "gay marriage" should be legal does not mean that they are "gay" themselves. There has been a lot of brainwashing going on these years, in the news, tv shows and commercials, education, and in literature, which leads people to think that homosexuality is "safe", "edifying", and equal to traditional marriage in value. Many who support gay marriage are among those who have been influenced in this way.

We are also allowed to ask for wisdom and understanding...according to the revealed Word....

James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

There are no degrees of Biblical love.

This statement is not true at all. Jesus himself teaches contrary to it:

Luke 7:42 And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?

43 Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.

45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.

46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.

47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

It's not my fault creationism has turned away from convincing the scientific community, and is instead trying to push their way into the public school system and otherwise trying to convince the average person that doesn't know squat about science. That is just what creationists have decided to do with their time, money, and effort to promote creationism instead of building up robust experiments to convince the scientific community. There simply is no scientific opposition to evolution, and those that do support creationism are few and far between and are not taken seriously by their peers in such matters.

I didn't put creationism into such a box, creationists did it to themselves. Is it "mockery", not sure, but regardless it's the truth, and the truth isn't always warm and fuzzy.

It seems to me that you have a rather narrowminded and uninformed view regarding Creationism. There are many scientists who support Creationism (see http://www.truenews....scientists.html ) not that this proves whether Creationism is true or false, of course. What it does prove, however, is that there are many good scientists who believe in Creationism.

The reason that the Creation Scientists are not taken seriously is because they are an unpopular minority, not because of the veracity of their arguments. The Scientific Community has always been hard on the nonconformists. (Remember Galileo?)

P.S. Of course, I am not saying that because Creationists are a minority this proves that they are correct. Whether the party in question belongs to a Minority or a Majority does nothing to prove the veracity of it's beliefs.

And it is true that we have no clue how life started from non life. But this is not a sufficient condition to stop working on it assuming naturalism. We lacked clue about a lot of things in the past and If we stopped at "God did it, forget any other alternative" we would still be living in cold caves without tablet computers and the time to speculate about these issues.

Actually, that is not true. At the time your ancestors were a bunch naked savages living in squalor, the Jewish people who beleived in God had a far more sophisticated and complex society. They were far cleaner, far more technologically advanced than their godless counterparts.

Could be. Althought I don't think that the godless Romans had a lot of problems to occupy the whole region and finally build some viable roads, aqueducts and sanitation

Ciao

- viole

For the record, the Romans were not, as you put it, "godless". They didn't believe in the God that we Christians believe in (and hold to be the Only God) but they (the Romans) had a whole host of gods. Read their mythology and you will find this to be true.

Yes, I am a human being (at least I think so ). I believe that the Bible was written by men under the inspiration of God - it is "God-Breathed". Why do I believe this? There are many reasons. The primary one for me is that it adresses the problems of life, death, and existence in a way that (IMO) no man ever could on his own.

God's wisdom is usually rational to us. Usually. However, there will be inconsistencies because of the dichotomy between the physical and spiritual (eternal) world. God's wisdom transcends our own. In those cases (when I don't understand), I will trust God and wait for the patience to hold on until that day when "I shall see...face to face, and I shall know, even as I also am known..."

Yes, but you also use some sort of rational thought when you say that the God hypothesys has the strongest explanatory power for you. How do you know that this conclusion is not affected by your human cognitive imperfection?

I believe that God has given man rational thought so that man, in his turn, may use it to yield all of his faculties to God's guidance. Do I know that this conclusion (my choice to believe in the Bible as God's Word) is not affected by my "human cognitive imperfection"? No, I do not. That's where faith comes in. Even though I do not know that I am choosing the right thing, I believe nonetheless.

Of course, if we do not want to fall into general skepticism, we have to rely on our cognitive faculties, somehow. If we didn't, everything would be self defeating.

I agree.

It just happens that my rational conclusions are different from yours. But to say that mine are not necessarily correct because they are human, can be equally used against your conclusions.

I agree.

And...Just because someone does not believe as I do, I cannot conclude that they are willfully rejecting the truth (they may or may not be). However, I believe that every Mortal, in due time, will be given enough knowledge to make the choice. Some, knowing God, will reject Him nonetheless (...when they knew God, they glorified him not as God...), and some, knowing God, will choose Him (...to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name). In the end, there will be two groups of people in the universe,(and here I quote a famous Christian authour) those who say to God "Thy will be done", and those to whom God says "Thy will be done". All who will end in either Heaven or Hell, will have chosen it for themselves.

So, what else is left, other than empirical evidence we can all agree upon, ... Maybe?

Ciao

- viole

I would say that all that is left is faith.

Yes, I am a human being (at least I think so ). I believe that the Bible was written by men under the inspiration of God - it is "God-Breathed". Why do I believe this? There are many reasons. The primary one for me is that it adresses the problems of life, death, and existence in a way that (IMO) no man ever could on his own.

God's wisdom is usually rational to us. Usually. However, there will be inconsistencies because of the dichotomy between the physical and spiritual (eternal) world. God's wisdom transcends our own. In those cases (when I don't understand), I will trust God and wait for the patience to hold on until that day when "I shall see...face to face, and I shall know, even as I also am known..."

The wisdom of God is always preferable to that of man (IMO, of course).

Yes of course, although I believe that the best way to uncover foolishness is to use rational arguments. Maybe I am a bit extreme, but I have the habit to not believe anyone, by default, not even myself, lol. Telling me that I am not really wise because I am exchanging the glory of the immortal God with something else is not very useful. Why should it convince me? My muslim neighbour tells me the same things. I definetely need more before I renounce my alleged wisdom.

Rational Human Argumentation is all very well to a certain point, but it is only Human, therefore it is often flawed and erroneous. Often (and I quote the Bible) what is "...the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. 1 Corinthians 3:19" Aristotle and his writings bear testament to this (i.e. Massive objects fall at greater speeds than less massive ones ect...).

I hope you indulge me if I get skeptical when a Book that proclaims a certain truth asks us to suspect wise people. It always leaves this after taste of "don't think too much about what I am saying", somehow.

For the record, Paul (in Romans) was not telling us to question wise people. Rather, he was telling us to suspect those who claim to be wise (or have an outward show of wisdom), but who in reality are foolish.

Wisdom is good (see Proverbs 9). However, there are some forms of foolishness which have the false appearance of wisdom, to this I think you would agree.

Amen! I couldn't resist quoting this chapter from Psalms:

Psalms 8:1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

I will simply choose to maintain my fellowship with God as directed. You can do what you wish.

That statement is unfair. We are not arguing the fact that being "in fellowship" is a state that God wants us to be in; we are simply saying that because of the flesh, a believer sometimes sins and falls out of that fellowship temporarilly.

A good example of this is when David sinned with Bathsheba. He went for about a year in unrepented sin - he had broken fellowship with God.

Fellowship is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English as: "friendly association, especially with people who share one’s interests".

If I sinned against my earthly father and continued for a time in unrepentance, I would have broken fellowship with him. In breaking fellowship with him, I do not cease to be his son nor does he cease to be my father. It is in the same way that a believer can break fellowship with God. This, though broken fellowship with God is an extremely undesirable state, it does not infer the loss or absence of salvation.

Constable has a lot of good things to say on this subject in his Notes on 1 John: http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/1john.pdf

Fellowship with God and salvation go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Your either Gods friend or his enemy. He has fellowship with his friends not his enemies. In the end, his friends are saved from eternal judgement not his enemies. 1 John 1 contains the 'message'. The good news that God has made a way for man and God to be united in fellowship that is eternal life.

People can be saved and be out of fellowship with God. Being out of fellowship doesn't mean that a person is not saved. Salvation is not fellowship. Those are not synonomous terms. People fall out of fellowship when they don't keep their prayer life up, or they stop going to church, particularly in times of discouragement. A person can fall out of fellowship, but that doesn't mean they have lost salvation or that God has discarded them. Fortunately God is not as capricious and fickle as we are.

Masterfully written!

There is nothing there about pre-mil beliefs. In fact, it is pure anti-Christ

My thoughts exactly.

"Hades" is the Greek word for the Hebrew term "Sheol".

I believe that is is also necesarry to point out that believing in of itself does not save us from Hell. God saves us; believing is simply a tool by which we can access God's salvation. That's why Paul says that we are saved "by grace" and "through faith" in Ephesians. Faith in and of itself does not save; God saves.

This can be summarized in the following sentence: "The farmer leads the pig to the market with a rope". Who leads the Pig? The farmer. And what is the tool that he uses to lead the Pig? The rope. Faith is like the rope. The farmer is like God. The rope doesn't lead the pig to the market; the farmer does. In the same way, Faith in and of itself does not save; God does.

When certain men in the Bible (like James, for instance) say that we are saved by faith, they do not mean that faith has intrinsic salvific power; rather, that without faith one cannot be saved. Without the rope the farmer cannot lead the pig to market. This doesn't change the fact that it is still the farmer who leads the pig and not the rope. Faith only saves us in this sense, as a tool. We can say (metaphorically) when we blow a tire on the highway that "the spare saved me from having to call a tow truck". We don't mean that the spare hopped out of the trunk and replaced the blown tire on its own; we simply mean that without the spare we could not have done anything except call the tow truck.

Hi Sholoh

You wrote: "CONFESSION OF SIN IS NOT SALVIFIC". Yet I Jn.1:8-10 reads: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." What could be more "SALVIFIC''?

You wrote: ''CONFESSION OF SIN IS FOR US, NOT FOR GOD." But of course, God has no sin.

enjoy

The verse which you quote from John speaks of maintaining positive fellowship in the Father-Son relationship between the believer and God. It is not about salvation from hell.

I don't get it.

Time forbids me to expound on this, but I do not understand that at death one goes immediately to heaven or hell. I am not referring to purgatory either.

Are you speaking of Sheol (Paradise/Place of suffering)?