secondeve Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Nonbeliever Followers: 1 Topic Count: 117 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1,276 Content Per Day: 0.19 Reputation: 2 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/02/2006 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/21/1986 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Things I Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azathoth Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Nonbeliever Followers: 0 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 60 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/19/2006 Status: Offline Share Posted June 20, 2006 I believe the most common argument against your points is to simply keep faith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandli5 Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 15 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 559 Content Per Day: 0.08 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/06/2006 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/29/1975 Share Posted June 20, 2006 The important thing to remember is that no one, no matter how persuasive, can force anyone to believe anything they don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christian Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 2 Topic Count: 25 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 583 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 3 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/07/2006 Status: Offline Birthday: 10/14/1962 Share Posted June 20, 2006 I'm sorry but you're just beating the dead horse again secondeve Keeping you entertained is truly the point of your posts I feel, you've asked these questions a hundred times over and heard every answer you could possibly hear by now. You say you are well versed in the Bible so if you are as "open minded" to new things as you say you are then I ask you to read these verses like it's the first time you've seen them. Read them with the same non-judgemental view that I am supposed to use when I read through your lists of doubts. If you are truly courageous enough, ask God to let them soak in to you so that you may "spiritually" begin to understand them and what we are talking about...I challenge you. So once more for the record: 1Corinthians 1:18,19 18 For the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those being lost, but to us being saved, it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the perceiving ones." 1Corinthians 2:11-16 11 For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. John 3:32-36 32 and what He has seen and heard, that He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. 33 He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. 34 For He whom God has sent speaks the Words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. 36 He who believes on the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. 1 John 1:4-9 4 And we write these things to you so that your joy may be full. 5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John 3:16 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. You talk a good game secondeve, but why are you so afraid of God ??? May your heart be opened to Christ, You could certainly do a lot more good and save more peoples lives. in Christ, -CC- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Journey Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 582 Content Per Day: 0.07 Reputation: 2 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/19/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/10/1970 Share Posted June 20, 2006 second eve, You have a cool website BTW... I think you are confusing rational faith with absolute certainty. Nothing in this life can be known with absolute certainty. Not even ourselves. But that does not mean that the things we encounter and believe cannot be understood rationally. The Bible present Truth in a manner that can be understood rationally. Those truths are often foreign to our sense of order and the ways things would be if we were in charge. However, that does not change the fact that the Bible presents them as the actual state of affairs. Reality whether we like it or not. Faith is the belief in the "true" nature of those truths. For most belief is the problem. Many demand a level of certainty that we cannot get in any other sphere of life. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nebula Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Royal Member Followers: 10 Topic Count: 5,823 Topics Per Day: 0.75 Content Count: 45,870 Content Per Day: 5.94 Reputation: 1,897 Days Won: 83 Joined: 03/22/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 11/19/1970 Share Posted June 20, 2006 If I didn't have the Holy Spirit in me, I wouldn't understand these things either. I'll attempt to answer a couple of these, and hope it makes at least a little sense to you. c. [How can] Anyone become Christian unless God directly intervenes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emeraldgirl Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Nonbeliever Followers: 1 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 179 Content Per Day: 0.02 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/07/2004 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/08/1971 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Secondeve, You definately ask the same questions I do and I'm someone whose "trying" to be a Christian! It may be that the main difference between you and me is that I don't have the nerve to just trash it all. 1. If the Bible can only be truly, correctly and properly understood by Christians, how can: a. Anyone convert on the basis of having read it; b. Believers use it in arguments against atheists, knowing full well that they won Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.C. Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 21 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 172 Content Per Day: 0.02 Reputation: 1 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/07/2004 Status: Offline Birthday: 01/13/1982 Share Posted June 20, 2006 That last part of your post, Emeraldgirl, is something I have found interesting, and also some that I have tried to figure out for myself over the years. What I have discovered was that even when Jesus Christ was on Earth, and when he was preforming miracles(such as bringing the dead back to life) people still rejected him and his teachings, even those that basically lived with him. And as I thought about this, it became apparent to me that Christ was not actually reviling that he was God to prove to those that would never believe in Him, but rather to reassure those who would believe. Maybe I am wrong. Remember, He knows people Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricH Posted June 20, 2006 Group: Royal Member Followers: 3 Topic Count: 366 Topics Per Day: 0.05 Content Count: 10,933 Content Per Day: 1.57 Reputation: 212 Days Won: 1 Joined: 04/21/2005 Status: Offline Share Posted June 20, 2006 Things I Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emeraldgirl Posted June 21, 2006 Group: Nonbeliever Followers: 1 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 179 Content Per Day: 0.02 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/07/2004 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/08/1971 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Well, I'm sure this is an attempt to get me to paint myself into a corner, but I'll play along anyway: Now, if I may ask you a quick question. smile.gif Do you consider yourself to be generally a good person, Emeraldgirl? Yes. But before you quote to me endless scriptures about how our righteousness is as filthy rags and how Paul had more reason to boast in keeping the law than most, I'll tell you I know all of that. I made the choice for Christianity long ago. I was in every respect what some here like to call a "true" Christian. I even said, "Okay, I know there are lots of things I don't get and I just plain don't believe, but I'm making the choice to "believe" anyway. I want the Christian path, every bit of it." Every day for me is just making the choice to "stay" a Christian, in spite of what makes sense/doesn't make sense. But sometimes I wonder what is the point of trying to stay in agreement with a set of beliefs that I just simply don't believe! After all, you wouldn't even have all the Protestant sects if they had just kept agreeing with the Catholic church. It bugs me that I don't categorize well, but maybe it shouldn't, maybe it shows that I'm true to myself. To what I really believe and not what scholars handed down as "the way to understand this". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts