(January 14, 2014 at 9:06 pm)StoryBook Wrote:(January 14, 2014 at 5:17 pm)Godschild Wrote: Yes God gave us free will, yet free will did not cause us to sin, if you would read the scriptures you would see pride was the cause for sin, self pride. We do need to surrender to God by giving up our self pride, until we can do that we can't ask for forgiveness, forgiveness come through repentance and repentance is giving up self pride. No we do not ever give up our free will, God would not have it like that.
And how did we get "self pride"? Who gave it to us?
It's part of our nature. It came into existence with Lucifer who wanted to reign over God, when that failed he tempted Adam and Eve into self pride by wanting to be equal to their creator.
GC Wrote:No, your family will understand God's justice, as scripture says, there will be no more sorrows nor tears in heaven. If you go to hell it will be of your own choice and in hell you will have the freedom to continue your hatred for God, everyone keeps their free will.
Quote:Who are you to assume that my family will not miss me. People are not suppose to get sad? Isn't free will connected to sadness? Our emotions are free will, are they not?
I'm telling you what God says, we will understand God's plan and why His justice reigns. God says we will not miss those lost to eternal punishment, God plan is for those in heaven to be eternally happy and at peace. Now that you have me thinking about it, those going to eternal punishment will probably be allowed to miss those in heaven, part of the punishment. If missing loved ones is part of eternal punishment it can't be part of eternal life in heaven.
Why are people not to be sad? No, free will is what it is a decision, though the decision can result in sadness or happiness.
GC Wrote:I hope you will continue looking and I will always try and give you answers to questions, if you're still confused just ask. I can only give you answers that I understand, God's the only one who can give you those answers that can satisfy.
Quote:if you don't get fed up with my ridiculous thinking
I see your thinking as influenced by many different views of the world and you're trying to sort out what is real and what isn't.
GC Wrote:How is it that other gods can exist when God says there are no other gods besides me, the creator of the universe and the One who has always been should know, right? If these gods exist why have they never come to me and ask me to believe in them, why did they not give up a sacrifice to save me from my sin.
Quote:I have counted over 30 creation stories, and have read a few. You think that your is the only one right "because is says so"? You don't know much about them so you didn't make them up in your imagination? You have yet to give me a straight answer on how your god has shown himself. All the see you you making the assumption that god did, because that is what you want to believe.
I would be surprised if there are only 30 and you're right I have not read others, I've heard the telling of native Americans creation stories. The God I worship came to me and showed me the truth, I did not seek Him out until He made Himself known to me. All those other gods have never come to me so why should I believe they created anything or for that matter believe in them.
God has answered my questions, I've seen Him working in others lives, just as you see the wind move things, yet you can't see the wind. I see God working though I can not see Him directly, you mistaken as to how I believe, you think I force myself to believe in God and the way He works, it is in reality God who causes me to believe because I want to understand, He teaches me in a spiritual relationship.
Quote:See, no one can be 100% on creation. There are so many dam stories about creation and life. So much stuff people believe to be true because it is written down. You believe this because you have hope, and a subconscious fear of hell. You find parallels in your life and convince yourself of a reality from a book. A book that was written by a human, claim to get answers from a god. He saw life and made his own conclusion and story for it, just as all the others did for their god(s) and creation stories.
GC Wrote:The first problem with you assumption, is that only one person wrote the Bible, there have been many authors, before making assumptions about the Bible you should first understand some of the basics about it. There is One who's responsible for the Bible, God.
I'm 100% sure that God created the universe, absolutely no doubts.
Quote:I knew there are many, just didn't write it thatmy bad. I was in a train of though and not paying attention.
Anyway. Many writers makes sense as to why there are so MANY contradictions.
You see contradictions simply because you're looking for contradictions, I see no contradictions because I allow God to guide me through the Bible and see the truth. Most so called contradictions come from cherry picking through scripture. A person needs to compare the scriptures to find answers, when I see what seems to be a contradiction I search out, with God's guidance, other scriptures on the same subject to find the truth within the scriptures.
GC Wrote:Asking me to stop believing would be futile, to give up what I know for sure would be stupid of me. Your mistake is that you think I believe in a book to get me through life, you could not be farther from the truth, God is who gets me through life and I find God's solutions in His word, the Bible is an instruction book that God has given to us. I have had rough patches in my life, but far from what many others have experienced so I consider myself fortunate and well looked after by God.
Quote:I see you have hope. God controls your life so you can go to heaven.
You come off as thinking that you are on the same level with god, why is that? You act like you are Jesus.
God does not control my life, I still have free will, God guides me through life through conviction and teaching me about life through scripture. I will be in heaven because of a choice I made not God controlling my life.
I do not understand where you believe I'm on the same level with God, He is my savior, my Lord, my guide and teacher all these in themselves would keep me below God. I tell you things God has taught me, sometimes directly and sometimes through His word, what you hear from me comes from God not of myself, yes God is speaking to you, I'm just the vessel He is using and I consider it a honor and pleasure to be a part of what He is doing.
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GC Wrote:I've lived in the world, actually many years without trusting God for anything, I thought things were fine and believed I knew the truth about life. Then I came to God through Christ and found how wrong I was, life as a greater meaning to me now and I live for others not just myself, being part of God's plan is an honor not a burden, most can't see this but it's true. We can make a burden of anything when things do not please us, in Christianity as long as we will serve God first, which means serving others before ourselves, we will have less time to worry about ourselves and our petty problems.
Quote:I help others, i'm not bad. I am more of an animal person tho. I guess you evil got likes taking his anger for humans out on animals to, so I have to step up. It's odd though i still don't get why he gave us flawed free will to sin.
I have no doubt you are a bad person, you've given no indication you are. Helping others is a good thing in the fact that people need help regardless of the reason. However the reason speaks more about who a person is and what they want from there work. Some help to self promote ( that selfish pride I spoke of earlier), some help because they have pity on others, some help because the love others and see a need to be meet. Christians are to help others because we should love others over ourselves, we are to help meet the needs of others so others will see God in our work. Because Christians love God first we are able to help others that in other circumstances we would have ignored them. This is kind of like a Christian creed, God first, others second and self last, in this way loving God first allows us to love others in Gods plan more than we otherwise would and we place ourselves last so we can stay out of the way of God's work.
God gave use free will to make decisions to walk with Him or reject Him, it is only in this way we can show our real love or non love for God. Free will is not flawed, it's how we use it that can be flawed.
GC Wrote:Backing up in life has never solved a thing, and when God is calling to us, backing up only makes things more difficult. I know you do not understand this hopefully one day you will. If Dawkins was so sure of himself then why did he find the need to attack Christianity, why didn't he just keep up promoting evolution. If he was so sure that Christianity was wrong why would he find it a threat to himself, I've seen his talks and he was self promoting, he never cared for others, it's as plain as the nose on my face. Even if I were an believer in evolution I still would find a man like him repulsive at best, his hatred for Christianity was obvious, on things for sure he now knows the truth, one way or the other.
GC
Quote:Don't be silly. I'm not backing up. I am seeing the world, and moving forward. Your god refuses to show himself to me. I have tried to find him, yet all I see is sorrow. Only when I take control of my life that I have seen the world. I have found nature. "Mother nature"(the earth) has shown herself to me. I have seen the future in dreams(and have strong intuition of things to come) and have tons of Déjà vu moments. I also have an empathic ability, I can feel a persons or animals emotions/pain(it is true, that's why I have so many questions and thoughts).
To put it in simple terms when God is calling to a person and that person does not respond they are backing up, ie. moving away from God. Mother nature as you put it is only life through natural selection and entropy. God could have given you the ability to sense people's emotional needs and if that is so he wants to show you the best way to use that gift to help others, the omniscient God will know best how you should use such a gift.
Quote:As for Dawkins, I was just using the scale to show how I view, I don't know that much about him. I'm trying to come to my own reasoning on things, my own way
All I know to say to you about this is God will help, I know He did it for me, it has worked beyond what I could have ever imagined, I love Him for it and find a need for Him daily, God will come through if you allow Him to, it's your choice.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
