RE: Ok I admit it
March 5, 2014 at 12:55 pm
(This post was last modified: March 5, 2014 at 1:45 pm by Mister Agenda.)
(March 4, 2014 at 2:11 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote:(March 4, 2014 at 2:08 pm)Esquilax Wrote: So she says, but the human memory isn't as accurate as you might think. Our memories inflate in importance, warp to fit the narrative we want to be true, and are just generally tainted by our perception. Embellishments just happen, dude: what might have been a flash in the corner of the eye becomes a clear, eye contact visualization over repeated tellings of the story.
You need to let go of this idea that human experience is perfect or always worthy of attention. It's just not; we have entire fields of study dedicated to refining our own personal experiences down to just the facts.
She is absolutely, 100% certain she clearly saw him for more than just a faint glance of an eye. She is as certain as possible, it wasn't just a vague thing she only faintly saw.
How did she know what she was seeing was an angel?
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: Amazing post I read online:
Simply put, GRACE can be defined as unearned favor. Specifically, God's grace is something God does for the benefit of His people just because He loves them, not because of something they have done to earn it. Grace is a gift and can never be earned. It's always totally free. ("Cheap Grace" is a counterfiet of God's amazing free grace. God's grace is free, but it was not cheap. It cost the life of our Creator and that is why it is now a free gift. Jesus wants you to have it, FREE.)
So if it's free, I don't have to do anything to get it. I don't have to believe or go to church or discriminate against gay people or pay tithes, because God gave his son/himself so we could have free grace. Cool. I have reservations about that being an accurate representation, thought.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: God's justice, mercy and grace can be compared to the pardon that a governor of a state can give to a guilty prisoner who is facing execution (the punishment of death) for something that he or she actually did. JUSTICE will be served and they will be killed unless the governor has MERCY and pardons (forgives) the prisoner. But if the governor goes on and gives that prisoner not only a pardon, but also total freedom, a huge mansion to live in, and unlimited resources then he has given that guilty prisoner both MERCY & GRACE.
You can't be just and merciful at the same time. Justice is when someone gets what they deserve. Mercy is when they don't. In your example, the governer serves Mercy at the expense of Justice. And if the governor throws in a mansion, that would be an injustice, rewarding someone despite knowing their crimes.
We are finite beings who can never deserve an infinite reward. But we can never deserve an infinite punishment, either.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: If we only received JUSTICE from God we all would be dead because all of us have sinned Romans 3:23, and the "wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23, yet we have been given a “stay of execution” for now.
It's unjust to treat all transgressions equally.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: Right now though, God offers us a pardon (MERCY). He wants to forgive us and set us free from the results of sin. And He has the legal right to do this because our Creator, Jesus, came and died so that we would not have to. Jesus died for us so that we could live, but His death can only be our salvation if we accept it. Just like the prisoner above, we can turn it down or we can accept this pardon that God offers. John 3:16.
The God you describe is ALWAYS unjust. He either doles out infinite punishment for finite crimes, or infinite reward for finite deeds. His punishments and rewards are never proportionate to the crimes or deeds, which is what justice is.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: If we accept the pardon that God offers us, not only will we not die, He then gives us a life that will never end. He continues by giving us an awesome room in His own home to live in, unlimited resources, and total freedom. That is God's AMAZING GRACE!
Which he informs us of through merely human intermediaries, starting in a tiny portion of the Middle East thousands of years ago. Sounds legit.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: The Bible gives us a beautiful example of what grace is and does. When Moses took the Children of Israel out of Egypt and into the desert the people soon became thirsty, but there wasn't any water to be found, especially not for 2,000,000 people, plus their herds of animals. God told Moses to strike a specific rock and He (God) would give the people water.
Israeli archaeologists searched in vain for evidence that two million people wandered around that desert. You just can't have that many people traipsing around such a small area for decades without leaving evidence. No trace. The Exodus never happened, and the Hebrews were never slaves in Egypt. It's just a story made up during the Babylonian Captivity to raise spirits: You think THIS is bad? Once we were slaves in Egypt and God started throwing miracles right and left, it just took a while for him to get started!
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: The water that came out of that rock demonstrates the grace of God flowing out to all who would drink. It also caused the parched and barren land to blossom which in turn gave the people and animals something to eat. Without this water, without God's grace supplying the needs of the people, the people would have died. Christ is the Rock; He is also the Living Water.
Back in the day he used to smite left and right, part seas for his followers, and raise the dead. Now that we have video, his son and mistress make appearances on toast. And he never heals something that can't heal naturally.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: Without God's mercy and grace, without the pardon that God gives us and all the blessings we receive every minute, we would die. Everyday God supplies us with the light of the sun, air to breath, and something to eat and drink. In fact, when you stop to think about it, without the materials that God has provided for us we cannot even create electricity on our own to make light, or create oxygen, or even create food. God supplies all we need, but we must choose to accept His gifts, or to reject them. We have the option of refusing to eat or drink. We have the option of closing ourselves up in an air tight, waterproof and darkened room, but it will kill us. We need God’s mercy and grace just to live.
God is quite the micro-manager, eh? A sensible omnipotent being would just set up the initial conditions so the universe could run pretty much on automatic from then on. At least deists have THAT going for them. Christians are stuck with bare assertions that gravity is just God hugging things to the ground, apparently.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: And God's grace does not stop with just our physical needs either. He has supplied what is needed for our spiritual well-being too. If we will only read and hide it in our hearts, God's Holy Word, the Bible contains all that we need to be happy, gain total freedom and have eternal life. The Bible tells us who God is and what He is like.
Why God? Why not Brahma? The Hindus say it was Brahma who did all that, and there are nearly a billion of them. How can they all be wrong? The Brahma Puranya tells us who God is and what he is like.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: In addition to the Bible, the Father allowed His Son, Jesus, to come and show us who He (the Father) is and what He is like. Jesus gave His life so that you and I do not have to die. God's justice, mercy and grace are all wrapped up in Jesus.
Brahma gave us Vishne in the form of Krishna to bring about a new age. Krishna is revered not only in Hinduism, but in Buddhism, Jainism, and B'hai, and Ahmadiyya Islam. and ascended to the Heavens having accomplished all things intended. Krishna offers a way off the endless Karmic cycle, as freely as the grace claimed for the Western God.
(March 5, 2014 at 5:40 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: God's grace is all around us. He wants us to live forever and be happy, but we have a choice to make. We can accept some of His grace during this “stay of execution” period and live here on earth for a few years, or we can accept ALL His grace and live forever with Him!
The CHOICE is up to you.That's another example of God's grace-His gift of free will that allows us to make our own choices. He is not a dictator.He will not force you to believe in Him. Nor will He force you to accept the gifts He freely gives to us. God bless
Wow. How could you argue against that.
It's preaching. It's not an argument, just a series of unsupported assertions.
(March 5, 2014 at 6:19 am)JesusLover1 Wrote:(March 5, 2014 at 6:17 am)pocaracas Wrote: If god exists, the guy has been quite efficient at clearing his tracks and making it look like it doesn't exist.
Yeah, so we can have faith in him, if he just appeared it wouldn't be our free will to believe in him.
Vishnu covered his tracks equally well. So we can have faith in him. If he just appeared, it wouldn't be our free will to believe in him.
Like I said before, there is a reason ALL theistic religions make a virtue of believing things without evidence. It's the only way they can survive.
(March 5, 2014 at 7:12 am)JesusLover1 Wrote:(March 5, 2014 at 7:10 am)jesus_wept Wrote: So free will is needed to believe in him when the argument suits you and it's not needed when it doesn't? How convenient.
Huh? My dad had the free will and choose to believe in him, that's why God started speaking to him.
There's a word for the class of beings who talk to you only after you believe in them: imaginary.
(March 5, 2014 at 7:47 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: It does seem like a cop out, but the thing is so many completely normal, rational, even skeptical people believe it, it's not just folks who will cling onto anything they so desire.
Once upon a time, we knew a tenth of one percent of what we know today. In dreams it seemed like we stepped away from our bodies and interacted with fantastic beings, and we really didn't have a good alternative explanation for that. Guidelines for scientific investigation weren't codified. Logic had not yet been formally explored. It was perfectly reasonable for people then to believe in a realm apart from the waking world containing spirits and gods.
It's not as reasonable as it used to be.
