(April 22, 2015 at 11:20 am)Dystopia Wrote:(April 22, 2015 at 11:15 am)vorlon13 Wrote: But it should be, lest the believer start thinking it is OK to cherry pick other scriptures to comport to, and leaving other scriptures to ignore.theism is just believing in god, it doesn't even mean you follow a religion. You don't even need to read scriptures to be religious, you just need to believe. I've met many kinds of Christians to think only those who read the whole bible literally are right. Cherry picking depends on the believer - Some don't pick but openly reject some verses or consider them contradictory towards bigger teachings. For example when my girlfriend was a Christian she thought Loving the neighbour cancelled the verse about hating gays in Leviticus (seriously atheists seem to study more leviticus than Christians themselves)
Putting the believer in charge instead of God seems like a REALLY bad idea to me.
Otherwise, why bother with God at all ??
But then it is a church of, by and for the believer. God is out of the equation.
I'm not saying people can't believe what they want, but it seems kind of 'cheeky' for supposed believers to think they know better than God about the totality of scripture.
If the belief is sincere, I'd expect to see some fire in the belly about comporting oneself to please God and his honor his book. If someone is just in it for appearance sake and cannot pass even the most minimal test of religious fealty, perhaps they would be happier (and more honest with us and themselves) if they joined a country club.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
