Hostage to fear

[Godscreated]

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?

You should have read further down the page to Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.
Now to answer you about Hebrews 11:1 My relationship with God, through the sacrifice of Christ and the grace given to me by the Father.

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.

You have avoided my statement by shifting the goal post from deconstruction by removing hell from the Bible to deconstruction through translation. As far as the translation of the Bible it was translated from Hebrew to Greek when people understood the ancient Hebrew, from Greek to Latin when people understood the Greek and, well Latin is still taught as a language today, even if it isn't spoken. I know that even today thee are words we do not know the meaning to that are part of the scriptures, but we can make sense of them from the words around them, people far more qualified than you have translated the scriptures and the modern day translations have been done by people from many different denominations with many years of work put into the project.
I bet you trust those who translated the hyrogliphics of Egypt and other civilizations, why do I believe this because they are probably your type of scientist.
I can say for certain that I do not trust evolutionary scientist and there is a good reason, not one of them have ever seen a change in the DNA of any animal or plant through natural causes.

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.

The word of God shows me you haven't, if you had you would believe. Actually I do not know where you stand part of the time you speak as if you believe and other times you speak as if you do not believe, it would be easier if the argument from you came from one side or the other and your questions of coarse could come from either. If you had allowed God to teach you you would have no doubts, only when you push aside the self and listen to God will you know.

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.

Excuse me the people in my church are mostly on the same page, it's true people have their opinion of parts of the scriptures as in my church. We do all believe that their is only one way to God and that God has to reveal the tough parts of scripture, those that boggle the physically intent mind.

 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.

Hold on, I did not say you didn't know good from evil, everyone does, it would have been a foolish thing for me to say as foolish as you saying I said or believe anything like that. You can twist things around with others and you might get away with it but I will call you on it.

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.

God wasn't talking to Himself in Genesis, he was telling Moses what had occurred in the centuries past. The serpent told Eve that she would be like God, God didn't say that we would be as knowing as He. He did say that man was like Us knowing good from evil, what He did not say was that man could successfully apply that understanding.

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.

Well you want get it from me, I told you what I've read and believe it to be the truth, I haven't the time.

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.

The greatest amount of people who do work to help the starving come through the churches. Our government pays farmers to destroy food, how is that helping the starving, it's absolute ignorance.

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.

Yes I am and why not, it's what God will hold us all to and my statement doesn't hinder an argument for God, I do not argue the existence for God I do as God has throughout His word, I state it.

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 have no idea what you're trying to say here, other than to place the blame of the starving on Christians, which is wrong in many ways. The Church does more work in this area than others. 

 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.

I watched all of the Cosmos, found some of it interesting and some of it outright lies, but that's my opinion on it. No what Carl Sagan desired was to brainwash the public to believe what He did. You still have avoided what I've stated and twisted things against the Christian church, nothing any different than I have heard here over the years.

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.

Now you're showing your true colors, and I now understand why you never found God. You ave no idea who God is and why He has done what He has for us.

 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.

My faith is based on knowable truth, just because you reject it doesn't mean it's not knowable, it simply means you do not care and guess what God has given you the right to choose between Him and yourself. The above bold is mine and it shows how little understanding you have of the Bible and now leaves me with great doubt you've even studied the Bible. God does not sanction child sacrifice, if you're going to throw out Issac don't he wasn't sacrificed.
To bad many people don't see things that way, it's why we have a problem with to many dogs. However that's a poor analogy for God controlling the what man does here, dogs are not free agents we are and you would scream out against God controlling your every move, just like you complain that He want show Himself to you in person. 

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.

Is this why you are angry with God, because He took home a child that you would have rather lived in such terrible times. I understand things like that hurt, but you don't get it your way all the time. In the above you wanted God to control the world and in your next reply you want Him to relent to you, you need to come to a stable thought on what it is you want, blaming God because He does and then blaming God because He want will drive you crazy.
Matthew 7:7 is about salvation and it is for all, it has nothing to do with praying to save a child's life.

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?

No that's what you've been saying, I said Eve knew she was disobeying God's commandment and understood the consequences.

 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.

What I'm saying on a public forum is you are trying and failing to twist what I stated and any sensible person can see this. God did not punish Eve before her disobedience, how could that even be possible and I'm saying she did know it was wrong, do you have a problem of understanding such a simple story or are you more interested in trying to undermine the scriptures.

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.

I got the info from Wiki and I am not interested in in this subject, I have many other things to be concerned with. What I do know as I stated, that God hates know one and that includes the way people are born, what God wants to do is help people in their situations if they will only allow that to happen. 

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.

Elijah and Enoch the only two men that were taken by God who were still living when taken. Three words, three sentences or three books what's the difference.

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.

She was loyal to God and her family, she was being smart. She deceived the people of Jericho and you have no proof those men were mass murders, it amazes me that a man who claims to be so smart has to twist around the words of scriptures so they will fit his despite for God.

Her faith saved her?

Yes, at least her physical life.

 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.[/qoute]

Jericho was going down regardless of her actions, you make light of God's power. 
You do not know she hadn't moved to Jericho just a couple years before the Israelites were at the door steps of Jericho. Last time I checked war was not considered murder, to finish off the enemy meant they could not come back to harm you. As the scriptures said it wasn't a whim, the whole city of Jericho had been talking about the Israelites and their God. You have no idea Rahab whether she knew what God had promised Abraham and his descendants. You are twisting the story to fit your ideas and your assumptions are baseless. 

 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".

Abraham was called righteous because he believed, Rahab believed regardless how she came to the knowledge and she acted upon this belief to save her life and the lives of her family. The scriptures say nothing about her going to heaven. I assume she did, but can't be sure. Faith isn't works and God rewards thoses who believe, remember Hebrew 11:6.
It is you who are adding more to the scriptures, not me. I read and accept them as they are, you on the other hand twist the scriptures to your wretched beliefs.

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.

Yes that's what I said, they were discussing the meaning of piety, what I was saying also that man can't define God and to try and condemn God through your definition of piety holds no water. Man can know good and evil as according to man's action and man hasn't the capability to define God by his ability to determine good and evil according to man's actions. God is omniscient and above your scrutiny. What makes you believe you can twist the scriptures and change reality, I know I can't do that with good science, seems I'm more capable of understanding the way things are than you are.

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.

You're welcome, however I see that we may not be able to have reasonable discussions because you are bent on twisting the scriptures to fit what you want to believe, you'll never find God until Hebrews 11:6 becomes part of your search.
No need to be impressed I did what I said I would, it's polite to do so.

GC