What is "FAITH"

[Bad Writer]

@ Esqulax, you believe what you wish, you've been presented the Gospel of Christ, what you do with it is your choice and yours alone, consider carefully your eternity is not reversible.
I'm tired of your childish ways, responding to you i like talking to a post, I'm doing as Jesus said, dusting off my feet and leaving you with yourself.

What proof do you have outside of the Bible that his eternity is not reversible?

BTW, if you won't talk to him, then talk to me. Give me your proof. Remember that if your proof is faith-based, then it's not proof, because that is, by definition, a belief in the unknown.

[Consilius]

Moses killed one man in his entire lifetime. That's not mass murder. You blatantly ignored or overlooked everything I just said and said exactly what you said before.

Why are you lying to people who care only for the truth? You can't tell us with a straight face that Moses only killed one person. What about all the other people that he or others killed whilst carrying out his orders? No more sugar-coating.

Fine.. Fuck Moses. You believe in the biggest murderer of all: God. I guess it makes sense that you don't feel bad about all the senseless killings in that old book of fairy-tales.

On Elijah cursing children in 2 Kings 2:23-24.
They weren't children. The Hebrew word neurim qetannim means "young man": between the ages of 12 and 30. Isaac was in his early twenties when he is nearly sacrificed in Genesis 22:12, and Joseph is seventeen in Genesis 37:2.

Children. Men. Fuck it, it doesn't matter that he killed grown men as long as they weren't children, right?

Elisha had finished revoking an Joshua's earlier curse on the nearby city of Jericho (Joshua 6:26) by making its water clean (2 Kings 2:19-22). Elisha was a prophet, a representative of God, as he had proven not long ago, and the insults were not going to him but to the God he stood for. This isn't very surprising, since he was traveling through an area of Israelite pagan worship (1 Kings 12:32). These men, if not pagan priests themselves, were pagan worshippers.

So you insult someone and that warrants death? I'm surprised GC is still alive!

Elisha responded to this threat to his prophetic mission by cursing them in the name of the God he stood for, and the one they were insulting. There is no evidence he prayed for any type of punishment at all, rather, God executed the curse by sending bears to maul them. That 42 of these men were captured and mauled by two bears suggests that there could have been many more people gathered against this one man.
This wasn't playful teasing from a few kids, but a mass gathering of pagans against a prophet.

Was it a threat or an insult? It seems the author of this website doesn't get his facts straight anyway, so why should I bother to listen to what he/she has to say?

I saw an insult, and that's I'm going with. They got cursed for dealing out an insult, and God enacted the curse with two female bears. Then 42 children/men/midgets sat around while waiting their turn to get mauled. If there were more people, the passage doesn't say, so now you're just speculating on a storybook. What a relief; I'm still not convinced of anything new except that you still like to sugarcoat these bible stories in order to make them seem more appealing to people who aren't already brainwashed.

Excuse my harsh tone, but I've pulled an all nighter, and people lying to me makes me cranky enough already.

This site made me LOL though, so you lightened my mood a bit.
http://christianthinktank.com/qmeanelisha.htm

An insult is used to make someone feel below you. We have 42 pagan men who were jeering at a prophet. They knew he was a prophet because he just performed a miracle in the name of God. They did not respect him for the reason that he was God's prophet. They were trying to show Elisha that their gods were more powerful and could step on his. God proved otherwise.
Does it make sense now?

[Bad Wolf]

I understand why a closed minded person like yourself would believe you can not make simple choices, that in your mind absolves you of sin. For me however I can make choices and do daily, I feel sorry for a person who lives life without hope, hope you see comes from choice.

Now you are just lying. At no point did I say you cannot make choices. I said, you cannot choose what you believe

I've heard atheist say the same thing, excuse me for not believing them. If you believe life just leads you around by the nose then why try, run and hide before it brings bad things your way, cower behind the boulders with your head between your knees. Don't look up life may be hanging over your head with something bad you can not refuse, good luck with that idea of life.

Oh how convenient. Athiests just lie about how they feel and what they believe. They don't really mean any of it do they? This is getting pathetic

So believing is not a choice, children are taught about Christ and Christian parents know their children have to make their own choice if they are to be saved. Most children grow out of Santa Clause before they become Christians, they know how to rationalize, sorry but you just do not get it.

Make their own choice? Are you kidding me? Christianity is all they have ever known, its how they rationalize the world. Its not a choice because they aren't given an accurate representation of alternate theories. Children believe their parents, there is no choice there. Its indoctrination.
I don't see the relevance of chlidren growing out of Santa Clause but I would be interested in seeing the research you obviously have looked up on this topic. You do realise you can rationalise something wrong don't you?

Responsible Christian parents allow their children to decide when the Holy Spirit calls, which by the way only the person being called knows it, so the parents have to trust their children on this matter. True answer.

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When the Holy Spirit calls? Thats an already biased viewpoint pushing them into Christianity. If parents really left it up to the children, they would allow them to make their own decision based on a accurate representation of the opposing views of religion. No theist I have ever talked to has had this accurate representation. They don't understand evolution and a lot of the time don't understand science in general. Their idea of what counts as evidence is also terrible. How can religious parents represent both sides equally when they don't understand the other side.

---

@ Esqulax, you believe what you wish, you've been presented the Gospel of Christ, what you do with it is your choice and yours alone, consider carefully your eternity is not reversible.
I'm tired of your childish ways, responding to you i like talking to a post, I'm doing as Jesus said, dusting off my feet and leaving you with yourself.

What proof do you have outside of the Bible that his eternity is not reversible?

BTW, if you won't talk to him, then talk to me. Give me your proof. Remember that if your proof is faith-based, then it's not proof, because that is, by definition, a belief in the unknown.

Oh no, don't bother asking for proof. He will just insult you, call you childish and refuse to answer. I wonder why he is refusing to present his proof, unless there isn't any?

[Godscreated]

Anyone who believes he's Batman is either one with a childish mind or one with a mind that needs help.

... calling me childish for positing the question to you is a little insulting. Oh no, I'm not the one insulted. The only thing insulted here was your intelligence until you finally realized why I was saying that I was the caped crusader.

I did not call you childish, my statement says, anyone, if you want to include yourself in there go ahead.

Just because no one else has chimed in has nothing to do with your dishonesty. You manipulated what I said into something I didn't say, do you call that a honest action?

I don't believe I was dishonest in backing you into a corner. No. There was only one way to answer, and you decided not to answer. Your cowardice instead led you to the conclusion that I was doing something evil to you, so you called me another name.

Yes you were dishonest, I stated the evidence I gave was tangible to me, you did twist it around to sound like i was stating I had proof of God. Most here know I would never say I have proof, I've made the statement many times that I can not prove God to anyone.

Prove to me I can't possibly believe in God.

Are you KIDDING me? I'm NOT asserting that there isn't a God. If you think I'm making such a claim, then you are delusional!

Buddy...heh...YOU are the one claiming there is a God.

The Burden of Proof is ON YOU

Fuck yeah.

Calm down and come off the ceiling, I did not assert that you said there was no God, please read carefully and logically reason what's been said, let's try this again. I stated,"prove to me I can't possibly believe in God. Want to try again?

You think what you have to say would discourage me, someone with no proof that I'm wrong, now you're trying to be funny, right.
The only ones that are cowards are those who will not open the Bible and investigate, why is it you are afraid of what the scriptures have to say to you?

What I'm saying is meant to ENCOURAGE you. I would never discourage someone from opening their mind and investigating the truth. Why the hell would I or any truth-promoting free thinker do that? I don't have a vendetta to destroy you; no, I have the HUMAN DECENCY to try and give you a motive for rational thought.

Encourage me, really, more like give up what you believe, it's not real, forget it I know without doubt that God is real and is who He says He is. My thoughts are rational, just because you think I'm wrong doesn't make it wrong. I say what I know is the truth, you ignore it and continue to do so because you're afraid to study scripture.

GC, I don't owe you any proof. I'm not saying you're wrong...I'm saying that you have an outrageous claim, and the claim is that there is a god, and that this god is the god of the Bible. First, you have to prove that there is a god. That's ALL you have to do.

How is what I claim outrageous, you have never experienced nor known God, what I claim is absolutely amazing. Like I said above I have not proposed I can prove God to you, He will reveal Himself through the scripture if you are not afraid to read and study them.

[Bad Writer]

An insult is used to make someone feel below you. We have 42 pagan men who were jeering at a prophet. They knew he was a prophet because he just performed a miracle in the name of God. They did not respect him for the reason that he was God's prophet. They were trying to show Elisha that their gods were more powerful and could step on his. God proved otherwise.
Does it make sense now?

Consilius, my friend, you have an author of a fairy tale about a god and his prophet. This author knows the script, so if he says that Elisha was a prophet, then that's who he was.

In the author's mind, Elisha is completely justified in cursing the children/men/circus clowns/village elders, and god is in his rights as Jahweh to send she-bears amongst them and rip them up for jeering at this man.

If this event even happened, and if this god is real, any outside observer will still view this as an evil act. If the crew of SNL makes a parody about Barrack Obama, then the U.S. government doesn't set a pack of hungry mountain lions loose in their changing rooms to teach them a lesson.

No matter how the scriptures justify its heinous acts, the acts are still heinous, and this god is always going to be on trial by the critical thinker.

[Godscreated]

@ Esqulax, you believe what you wish, you've been presented the Gospel of Christ, what you do with it is your choice and yours alone, consider carefully your eternity is not reversible.
I'm tired of your childish ways, responding to you i like talking to a post, I'm doing as Jesus said, dusting off my feet and leaving you with yourself.

What proof do you have outside of the Bible that his eternity is not reversible?

BTW, if you won't talk to him, then talk to me. Give me your proof. Remember that if your proof is faith-based, then it's not proof, because that is, by definition, a belief in the unknown.

To you God is unknown, for me I know God well, I have no doubts of His existence or who He is. You see I'm so sure of what I know there is no other option for me and if there was I would not choose another option.
Now you know where I stand, you know where you stand and you know what you have to do to know what I do. I can't make you believe I can't give you proof of God, and I do not have to it's not a requirement from God, actually it's God's responsibility to prove Himself to you. He want unless you're willing to listen to Him and that is going to come through His word, the Bible. You and all atheist here want Christians to explain to you that God is real and we keep telling you we can't, you have to go to God for that answer.

As far as Esqulax's eternal destination or your's or mine not being reversible can only come from scripture, where else is there.

[Foxaèr]

for me I know God well.

God can only be known as well as anything else that does not exist, through delusion created by the mind.

[Bad Writer]

I did not call you childish...

Ahem...

With that you proved how childish you are, how's that.

Oh...you didn't say that?

Look, to save us time in future posts, please don't call me a liar. I will catch you in the act every time. Do you understand?

Yes you were dishonest, I stated the evidence I gave was tangible to me, you did twist it around to sound like i was stating I had proof of God. Most here know I would never say I have proof, I've made the statement many times that I can not prove God to anyone.

Evidence = proof. Saying that you have either is admitting to both. If you have evidence AT ALL, even it's only tangible to you, is still claiming evidence/proof.

Sadly, it's also not real evidence. So...it looks like most here don't know that you say you don't have proof, because you're still claiming proof. Faith is not proof; it's just faith. It's also a dishonest feeling.

If you can't prove god to anyone, then you're contradicting what you just said by telling people to pray and read the scriptures. That's telling people there's a way that god can be proven. Do you not see it that way? If you don't, then you're delusional...again. Let's get rid of your delusions, shall we?

Anyway.

Let me pose a question to you. Why do you think that I and other people here are asking you for proof? I will reply only to your honest answer of this.

Moving on for a moment.

Calm down and come off the ceiling, I did not assert that you said there was no God, please read carefully and logically reason what's been said, let's try this again. I stated,"prove to me I can't possibly believe in God. Want to try again?

...are you shitting me? This changes nothing, so don't play semantics with me.

I'm not going to prove anything to you that I never claimed, and don't be a stick in the mud about it.

Your claim. Your proof. Not mine.

By the way, read the next quote of yours where you're asking me for proof of you being wrong. You can try to play this semantics game all day with me, but you're going to lose. Focus on what's important here, please.

You think what you have to say would discourage me, someone with no proof that I'm wrong, now you're trying to be funny, right.

Bam! Now shove off about this, and don't ask me for proof of stuff I never claimed.

The only ones that are cowards are those who will not open the Bible and investigate, why is it you are afraid of what the scriptures have to say to you?

Who are you to say that I haven't? Bold claim there. Again, the proof is on you to find out whether or not I've studied the Bible to investigate.

Are you beginning to notice the trend here with our little chat?

Encourage me, really, more like give up what you believe, it's not real, forget it I know without doubt that God is real and is who He says He is. My thoughts are rational, just because you think I'm wrong doesn't make it wrong. I say what I know is the truth, you ignore it and continue to do so because you're afraid to study scripture.

Here it is. Right here. You are making your claim "that God is real and is who he says He is". That's when you are supposed to present evidence to an outrageous claim.

Look at it this way: if my neighbor tells me he was abducted by aliens, and his story is corroborated by dozens of other abductees with details in their stories that match his, should I believe him in his outrageous claim, or should I remain skeptical?

The answer is to remain skeptical. It's the same thing if I tell you there's a unicorn standing behind me. You answer that you cannot see it. Then I tell you that it's because it's invisible and that you need faith to believe it's there. Not only am I being dishonest with you in making such an outrageous, unsubstantiated claim, but I'm requiring dishonesty of you when I ask for you to use faith.

The same is with god and believers of this god. Now tell me...how is believing in invisible unicorns at all rational if the proof is simply your own?

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What proof do you have outside of the Bible that his eternity is not reversible?

To you God is unknown, for me I know God well, I have no doubts of His existence or who He is. You see I'm so sure of what I know there is no other option for me and if there was I would not choose another option.

You know because you know because you know.

As far as Esqulax's eternal destination or your's or mine not being reversible can only come from scripture, where else is there.

And Captain Kirk said, "What does god need with a spaceship?" Your god shouldn't require anyone of anything, nor should he require anything himself if he truly is a god.

We hear of she-bears tearing up youth in times past for insulting the prophet, but this stuff doesn't happen now because we know enough to realize what is real and what isn't.

Seriously, with as much blaspheming as I do here, I should have been struck by lightning ten times over. Or was that Zeus...heh, it's easy to get these Heavenly Father archtypes so mixed up since they borrow heavily from each other in the first place.

[MindForgedManacle]

What amusing about "faith" is that both sides tend to agree on it.

I'd like to point out that the Luther quote in question is historically dubious, and there are a good number of times in reliable historical records that Luther spoke well of reason, and not juxtaposing it with faith.

[Godscreated]

I understand why a closed minded person like yourself would believe you can not make simple choices, that in your mind absolves you of sin. For me however I can make choices and do daily, I feel sorry for a person who lives life without hope, hope you see comes from choice.

Now you are just lying. At no point did I say you cannot make choices. I said, you cannot choose what you believe

Choosing what I believe I have done, just because you can't doesn't mean I'm incapable of choice of what I believe. In what crazy mind does it make sense that one can make choices yet can not choose what to believe, man that's insane IMO. I see no difference in choosing to go on a trip and choosing what one believes.

I've heard atheist say the same thing, excuse me for not believing them. If you believe life just leads you around by the nose then why try, run and hide before it brings bad things your way, cower behind the boulders with your head between your knees. Don't look up life may be hanging over your head with something bad you can not refuse, good luck with that idea of life.

Oh how convenient. Athiests just lie about how they feel and what they believe. They don't really mean any of it do they? This is getting pathetic

I did not say atheist lie about there feelings or what they believe, I did say you're idea of no choice is pathetic and why go on if you believe what you do.

So believing is not a choice, children are taught about Christ and Christian parents know their children have to make their own choice if they are to be saved. Most children grow out of Santa Clause before they become Christians, they know how to rationalize, sorry but you just do not get it.

Make their own choice? Are you kidding me? Christianity is all they have ever known, its how they rationalize the world. Its not a choice because they aren't given an accurate representation of alternate theories. Children believe their parents, there is no choice there. Its indoctrination.

Then evolution is indoctrination, it's all kids are taught, they have no alternate theories, children believe what the teachers say they are taught that the teachers know best. Want to reconsider your answer?

I don't see the relevance of chlidren growing out of Santa Clause but I would be interested in seeing the research you obviously have looked up on this topic. You do realise you can rationalise something wrong don't you?

I realize most children dump Santa before they become Christians, they understand the difference of a fairy tale and the God they have chosen, God is real, they choose Him at an older age, an age after Santa is long gone. You rationalize it your way I'll hang with reality myself.

Responsible Christian parents allow their children to decide when the Holy Spirit calls, which by the way only the person being called knows it, so the parents have to trust their children on this matter. True answer.

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When the Holy Spirit calls? Thats an already biased viewpoint pushing them into Christianity. If parents really left it up to the children, they would allow them to make their own decision based on a accurate representation of the opposing views of religion. No theist I have ever talked to has had this accurate representation. They don't understand evolution and a lot of the time don't understand science in general. Their idea of what counts as evidence is also terrible. How can religious parents represent both sides equally when they don't understand the other side.

If teachers were responsible they would give children an opposing view of evolution, then they would be allowed to choose what they want to study. No Christian children I've spoken to or taught for that matter has been given that opportunity, only biased science biased toward evolution which has no real proof. Sure you don't want to change your statement.

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What proof do you have outside of the Bible that his eternity is not reversible?

BTW, if you won't talk to him, then talk to me. Give me your proof. Remember that if your proof is faith-based, then it's not proof, because that is, by definition, a belief in the unknown.

Oh no, don't bother asking for proof. He will just insult you, call you childish and refuse to answer. I wonder why he is refusing to present his proof, unless there isn't any?

Those who act like children I call childish, you're acting like a child.