Hostage to fear

[Spacetime]

What I believe and understand about belief is that it is a choice and it couldn't be any other way or it would be forced on us.

I noticed that you have emphasized, trying desperately, made tremendous effort. This is also against the teachings of Christ himself. He said that each of us would be called by the Father through the Holy Spirit, what Christians calls conviction of the heart. This means you can't come into belief without the help of God and He will but, you have to allow this to happen. You're choosing to allow God to put into you an understanding beyond what you or the world can achieve. We are to focused on the physical as humans and what God gives us is the spiritual that is beyond our reach.
I don't think you are ignorant and I suspect you've read much of the Bible if not all, but like many you are reading and understanding only the surface ie. the physical things not the spiritual. If you will remember I replied to you about hell, that when you take hell out of the equation so to speak you have eliminated eternal justice. You are essentially deconstructing the essence of scripture and doing what you asked me not to do, that's not to deconstruct the whole of your question, so why are you deconstructing the scriptures and trying to arrive at what God has given us. 

There is no translation of Hebrews 11:1 that satisfies your answer. What gives you certainty about the things you hope for? What assures you about things "not seen"? Or in poorer translations, what evidence do you have that gives you certainty?

Regarding deconstruction, this is necessary to understand the text. Given that the language it is written in (all of them) are now dead to us, we cannot afford the premise of sola scriptura. Because those who do not speak ancient Hebrew or Greek aren't relying on "The Word" alone, you are relying on linguists, literary critics, translators, printers, scribes, etc., etc., etc. Essentially, the same faith you might say I have in scientists is the same faith you have in the translators of the bible. The difference is, I know the credentials of the academics & scientists and can have a better foundation to have faith in their work, than any that can be found in translators, especially classical translations.

Because you have not allowed God through a personal relationship to teach you who He is, you are basing your opinion of God with a physical understanding and without allowing Him to show you who He is and of coarse that only comes after one has accepted Christ as their savior and Lord. You need to keep in mind we are not dealing with a physical being and one who is omniscient, who is eternal and who's plan is beyond our complete understanding. God said, "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are above and beyond your's," the thoughts He speaks of is also understand of all things. We do not understand what life is, He created it.

Pardon, but what is your authority for stating that I have not allowed god to teach me who he is through a personal relationship. We *are* not dealing with a physical being. We are dealing with an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent "diety" that revealed himself through scripture... a text that has spawned literally as many different interpretations of it as there are people who've dared to read it. His thoughts are not my thoughts, but you are denying scripture if you believe that I (personally) do not know the difference between good and evil. This god revealed to us, when he was talking to himself in the book of Genesis, that homo sapiens do share the same knowledge as god when it comes to good and evil. I understand the Christian god's actions as evil. Scripture tells me that my understanding is as good as god's.

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This is a subject that is highly argued and it would really depend on what wants to believe, I do know this, not only do creation scientist believe the dating of the Egyptian dynasties are wrong but some secular scientist are concerned they may be wrong. Of coarse this will probably only muddy the water, but it does put concern on the age of the pyramids. 

I would need you to show the degree of inconsistency between what conventional Egyptology teaches about the age of pyramid building and the other records in history that run congruent to the former (such as Ptolemaic, Archaemenic, and Roman records). And I will need citations by academically credible sources. Until that happens, the Christian bible teaches (as god-breathed truth) that the Egyptians were supposedly quarrying rocks and moving them to their bedrock foundations under water, during the "global flood" for a period of time that is inconsistent with human biology.

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I actually think there's a question here that you should consider. Why do the people of this world allow those children to starve, God created us to take care of our fellow man, why do we not spend the money to help them all, the moneys wasted and spent on government projects around the world could easily pay for the foods needed, for the technology to help these peoples to sustain themselves, to drill wells to supply clean water. We are the ones who created these problems, why then is it God's responsibility to right our wrongs. The world today is in a mode of "bail me out I screwed up," this is something that's been taught it wasn't the way things use to be, socialism has been responsible for this type of thinking and now those who support this kind of thinking try to apply it to God. I've been asked this question a number of times and I ask why should God bail out the world, He didn't cause the problem then I ask, what are you doing about helping these poor children if you are actually that concerned about them. I say that anyone who throws away food has no right to question God.

People are allowing children to starve as much as they are trying to save them. There is a degree of uncharitable selfishness, but there is an abundance of folks trying to feed them. You are applying an objective standard to humanity as a whole. That's not only impossible, but it makes your argument for the existence of god that much more difficult. We would have a better chance of feeding all the children of the world if we would take better care of the minority of our planet's surface that is actually habitable by edible vegetation. However, it seems to be the theists that closely align their majority to the political parties that see any suggestion of this as heresy to individual rights or liberty or "free will". I advise you to watch the last episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos", a television program that remakes Carl Sagan's version that was purposed for communicating the sum of our species big ideas through the various sciences in such a way that makes them understandable to the everyman.

The best answer I can give you would be similar to the the answer to question #4. I will ask you this why is it God's business to run the world? Is God suppose to intervene in a persons life that doesn't want Him to or, is He to allow life to continue as we make it and then be their for those who want His help to get through the mess we make of the world. If God was to act as the atheist here think He should the world would be seriously overpopulated, because nothing bad would ever happen, not even death. As we know death is the earthly penalty for sin.

If existence were created by your flavor of deity, than I am an unwilling participant in your god's need to be constantly groveled to by lesser beings. Just as I am an unwilling participant in Christ's crucifixion, that is, if your faith is based on some unknowable truth. I am against burning people for eternity even if they are mass murderers, and I am against the human child sacrifice that the Christian god so strongly favors. It is god's business to run the world... just as if I adopt a dog and put it in a cage, I must feed it, clean up after it, and if it gets sick... I intervene.

This is a leading question that is designed to give me no way out, but not to fear there's an answer that doesn't condemn God. Why should God listen to you a person who doesn't really believe, who doesn't trust His word (Bible). If this family was praying to God and Christians they should have understood that the prayer might not be answered in the way they desired.

You are saying that because, despite all my efforts to believe, the child died because I couldn't, and as a result god didn't listen to my heathen prayers? Maybe theirs weren't worthy... I'll let them know next time I see them that Matthew 7:7 just wasn't for them.

Yes the death of man is the result of Adam and Eve's disobedience, I find it funny you mention only Eve and I like how you tried to work in she didn't know she was doing wrong when the scriptures leave us with no doubt she knew she was doing wrong. Did she know what evil was, yes after her disobedience.

You are telling me, here, that Eve was supposed to know that eating from the tree was evil ... before she ate from the fruit that possessed her to actually know the difference between good and evil? Surely not, because you said "Did she know what evil was, yes after her disobedience" ... you are seriously proposing, in a public forum, that your Christian god was justified for punishing the woman before she even knew her actions were wrong? That's a question I hope you will answer, because your answer will be very telling about you as a person and how you reconcile your faith.

I've never heard of the Baptist Church refusing to marry a man with klinefelter syndrome. I can't answer for other denominations. From what I understand the gender is set as male. God hates no one, what He hates is people's sinful actions. Why would God hate a person who has klinefelter syndrome and marries some produce children and even more can when they receive treatments and like I said a person with klinefelter syndrome is classified as male. The only reason anyone goes to hell is for rejecting Christ, not because they were born a certain way. You should know this if you have studied the Bible as much as you've said.

Read more please. Seriously... regarding everything you just typed here... read more about klinefelter's syndrome. This does not warrant a response, and if you were in a geneticist's lab... you would be excused... not even politely for this nonsense.

Enoch was the son of Jared, Enoch was the father of Methuselah.

So far so good.

...Enoch we assume by what little scriptures tell us walked closely with God in a very special relationship. Does walk mean he physically walked with God, not necessarily, but it could have been if it was Jesus who appeared to people during the OT times. I'm not sure why you wanted to ask this question, I think the answer to this is an easily understood one by most that read the very short story.

The short story? As in the three sentences about him, each in different books of scripture? And yet he was assumed into heaven. What other characters in the scriptures were afforded that honor? If you're not sure why I'm asking this question, then you have all your work ahead of you.

Rahab was justified or righteous because she showed her faith that God would give over Jericho to the Israelites, she trusted that God would do what He had promised to Abraham all those years ago, she also did as the men from God had asked, showing more faith in God's ability to keep her family safe until after the city fell.. Works doesn't save anyone works shows what we believe, if one believes he/she will do God's work because they have real faith in Christ, they will want to do work. So if someone claims to be a Christian and never shows any evidence of being a Christian then a doubt should arise in people of faith.

That's a poetic way to say that she earned her salvation by lying to her own people and hiding mass murderers. Her faith saved her? Despite her works that were responsible for the death of so many people? So faith is good if it means that you act to participate in the mass murder of people you grew up with on the whim of a person you've just met. Don't be confused either... don't add more to the scripture here. Remember, god never revealed himself to her... several sweaty, desert nomads warned her of the destruction of her city, and the first thing she did was save her own ass. This isn't just a question of works versus salvation, this is a question of theodicy and the standard by which your god calls people "righteous".

I have no answer, because man can't define who God is, the men who discussed this were actually speaking concerning non existent gods. I should live my life according to Jesus example and teachings not man's thoughts. God says man will always disappoint each other because we are a selfish sort. Even in the discussion of a definition for piety there was selfish motives.

We're not defining god... we're defining goodness. According to scripture, human beings can know what is good. <-this is fact, if you grant scripture and there is no way around this. This warrants an answer, if your willing. BUT by all means, don't answer it here if you don't want to... answer it for yourself.

Sorry it took a while to answer these questions, you gave me several and I wanted to answer them all at one time.

GC

Quite alright, I'm impressed and appreciative that you made the effort to address each. Thank you.