Love the Lord your God with all your heart ?

[Kingpin]

Drich, if a person lives their life morally, helps his loved ones, doesn't hurt anyone, supports charity, and does good works...but they don't accept or love or worship Jesus/God... are they still considered 'diseased' with sin?

Thats really a loaded question.  You need to explain how someone "lives their life morally".  Since most on here would say morally is subjective, how could anyone live a moral life, if its a moving target?  

No one who professes to be Christian should espouse anyone as being able to lead a "perfect moral life".  All are "diseased with sin" as you put it.

[FatAndFaithless]

Drich, if a person lives their life morally, helps his loved ones, doesn't hurt anyone, supports charity, and does good works...but they don't accept or love or worship Jesus/God... are they still considered 'diseased' with sin?

Thats really a loaded question.  You need to explain how someone "lives their life morally".  Since most on here would say morally is subjective, how could anyone live a moral life, if its a moving target?  

No one who professes to be Christian should espouse anyone as being able to lead a "perfect moral life".  All are "diseased with sin" as you put it.

Okay, at least you come out and say it clearly, so thanks.  I also never used the phrase "perfect moral life," I simply mean they life their life to the best of their ability without hurting anyone (intentionally), they protect their loved ones, give to charity, etc.

Just think of what you would consider as a "good person."  And simply take away the belief in God/jesus.  Does it matter how good that person is, or are they still tainted?

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm wondering how you could walk away from the response you quoted and wonder that....frankly.  OFC I do...as I just said I did.  Only noticing that this must be a different type of fear, honor and respect..because I can't muster it for the character of your god regardless of how naturally it comes to me with real beings, actual persons.  Hell...I can even muster it up for -some- fictional characters.  God just isn't respectable, isn't honorable, isn't frightening...to me.  Commanding me to feel this way is a phenomenal misunderstanding of human nature.

Why??? Why isn't god honorable or respectable to you?

It hardly matters why in my conversation with you. That's the way it is, that's who I am...my respect and honor cannot be summoned up by command, and god is -well- under the bar for either.

[Rhondazvous]

I've before made the comparison between the relationship with God and an abusive household. The abuser in the scenario is a cold and indifferent world, the victim is a fragile and ignorant primate species who's flawed brains project agency where there is none.
The world strikes the primates with unrelenting hardship: plagues, disasters, pain, death, for centuries without warning or explanation, and the primates reacts as many victims of abuse do, they come to excuse and even defend the actions of the abuser, convince themselves that the abuser knows best and that they must have deserved the punishment they got, and if they just did as they were supposed to, then they wouldn't be hurt. Problem is, this abuser is an unthinking cosmos that the primitive apes have mistaken for an angry parent.

Oh but I can't blame god. God loves me. Of course, if I had the power to follow his example of love, he'd be hurt. There must be some hidden sin in me that's blocking my faith. I'll just pray and ask him to reveal what I'm doing wrong.

[Rhondazvous]

How true. An abusive god created by a society that thought parents and husbands owned their children and wives and were justified in whatever they wanted to do. Such a religion has no place in the 21st century.

The whole thing about worthlessness is the same tactic used in commercial advertising. "You're inadequate. You don't have what it takes and you never will unless you buy what we're selling."

and if you and your meme are wrong?

What if it has nothing to do with worth, what's being sold or abuse? Again what is it is a simple matter of infected/sick verse vaccinated/cured?

Just suspend the egyptian idea of after life being warranted on works or deeds, and just assume for a moment that eternal life is based on something different. Let's say it is based on being inoculated for a sickness or disease. If one does not get his medicine the will be segregated from the well population and die.

That is what atonement is. It is a protection for the disease of sin.

I'm using the example of the zombie virus in another thread.. Let's say sin is like the Zombie virus. Does it matter if your a good person or not. If you have the zombie virus even if you have not fully turned yet you can still infect others. So then should your 'morality or character' matter when quarantining those who are infect from those who have been inoculated?

What shouldn't be allowed in the 21 century is the atheistic straw man that puts Christianity on the same basis of all other works based religions.

Yeah everybody, just throw the bible and all its problematic concepts away. We'll now follow the Gospel According to Drippy. We're not sinners in the hands of an angry god. We're patients with a gentle god waiting to give us the cure.

[robvalue]

Why??? Why isn't god honorable or respectable to you?

It hardly matters why in my conversation with you.  That's the way it is, that's who I am...my respect and honor cannot be summoned up by command, and god is -well- under the bar for either.

Think how honourable and respectable a chocolate wrapper blowing down the street is.

Then go further by removing the wrapper entirely.

That's how honourable and respectable God is.

As for the fictional character in the bible, if we were to pretend it was real, it would be about the least honourable and respectable being I could imagine.

[Joods]

You're expected also to live in constant fear of this being while loving it and singing its praises. It's the kind of love you have for the local tyrannical dictator; adoration by ultimatum.

That's why if he were real, he'd be a narcissist.

---

Correction: A Psychopathic Narcissist

---

[Thomas Kelly252525]

Drich,

It appears we may disagree about me being a peacemaker.  It may be thought that I have been working to make clear what we agree with and that I haven't neglected anything you said.  I have not been arrogant, I have been working to be helpful.

Do you think that it is true and false at the same time that loving/goodwill to your fellow man is a part of serving God ?

Now I completely understand what you are saying, in that loving your fellow man is apart of loving God. The answer to that is both yes and no. No in that if by simply loving your fellow man was the same as loving God with all of your heart mind spirit and strength their would not need to be the second of the two greatest commands Jesus points out. ...And Yes loving your fellow Man is the apart of Loving God, because loving only those who love God follow His commands.. and as "loving your neighbor" represents 50% of all of God's commands one can not love God without loving his neighbor.

--"From what I originally said... Yes and No."--

I'm learning more about you in investigation by what you answer.  Do you think it's possible that a man may have goodwill towards his neighbour and serve God without being aware of it and the man be unrewarded ?

If you think I was saying that Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind is not the first and greatest commandment, what words of mine precisely do you think proves that and will you show precisely how you think they prove what you may think ?

"Wow... You really truly still don't know.

Brother it is with respect that i tell you that if you are going to be effective in this mission field you must absolutely READ and process what others tell you. that is why In my initial response I outlined your position first and then corrected it. So as to show you not only do I know what you think, but how it differs from what the bible says. I made a clear distinction that divided love from God with love of your fellow man. It was my belief from what you originally said, that eg. "loving God was made complete or could be done by simply loving your fellow man." I pointed out if this were the case then their would not need to be a need for the second of the two great commands. (To love your neighbor as yourself.) We are told by Christ to love God with all that we are, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If loving your neighbor was tantamount to loving God then we would not need the second commandment, and we would only need the first. Since we have this second command it means that loving God could mean neglect or even bring about harm to your neighbor. Hence the need for the second command."--

Have you ever worked to prove anything precisely before ?  Did you not see that's what I asked you to do ?  I still don't agree with what you have appeared to be thinking in that above this.

You may look at some words below taken from things said previously in posts and tell me if they were the things which may have made you think that I was saying Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind is not the first and greatest commandment.  You may remember how I set the true or false questions for you and proceed in a similar way.

1. "It may be thought that by serving people in the right way for God it shows a person's respect or reverence for him and the person's goodwill towards other people and God."

2. "I think there are many ways a person may work to serve people and God and goodwill must be the force behind serving people and God."

If none of those are what caused you to think what you did then will you search for exactly what did do it.  Why should anyone accept imprecise evidence in accusations ?  Would you want someone to do that to you ?

I don't agree I was saying Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind is not the first and greatest commandment.

--"No as I outlined you were saying love your neighbor/Serving people the 'right way.' full fills the greatest command. Or, that loving your 'brother the right way' is the same as as full filling the greatest command. It's not. Our love for God has nothing to do with what people think, do, nor how they perceive this love in anyone else. nor does it matter how they judge one's love for God based on the other person's actions.. Again, we can't all be eyes or ears. We are all different parts of the same body, and as a result our love and worship will manifest itself differently. To judge anothers love by how he does or does not interact with others is at the very least persumptious. Because it is using your gifts your standards to set a mark for a member of the body who may or may not have been blessed with your specific gift set.. The same gift set you are using as a corner stone to judge someone else."--

You may think I've answered this partly above in asking you to use my words precisely. 

You may compare with what you said above 1 John 4:1 Dear friends, don't believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God.  Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have gone out into the world.

If you compared, what is the truth about what you said ?

--"Because we are all different our manifestation of this all encompassing love will look slightly different from person to person, and across communities may look vastly different."

"So again to say on must interact a certain way with another member of the body to be 'judged' (by you or members of your sect) to be showing an 'appropriate' amount or type of love is foolishness."--

1 John 4:1 answers all that and may be seen above.

I never thought of you as being my brother, maybe you want to be.  So what I did was correct considering the circumstances.
If we are willing to serve God then that is a good condition to be in.

Do you think that is true or false ?

--"I'm sorry, but titles were never a consideration. It is our works thoughts and deeds that define who we are. not what we call ourselves. If I am treating you the way i would like to be treated, then I am going to tell you let your deeds, your thoughts and your reaction to what it is I do and say be your answer. In turn judge what I say and do, not by how my words make you 'feel' but how closly they strike to what has been written in scripture, (not your preferred doctrine) and also HOW it was written. Judge that, not a declaration of allegiance.
So neither true nor false, seek you answer not in what I say I will do or what I say I think but in my actions."--

It may be thought by those words you looked like an imperfect brother and it may be thought that is a consideration.

From above, If we are willing to serve God then that is a good condition to be in.

Is that true or false ? Use my words precisely.

By God's goodwill we are given sayings to learn how to obey God and serve man and respect or reverence is a part of it.
Do you think that is true or false ?

--"I would ask you for book chapter and verse. Because what comes to mind is 2 time 3:16 All Scripture is given by God. And all Scripture is useful for teaching and for showing people what is wrong in their lives. It is useful for correcting faults and teaching the right way to live. 17 Using the Scriptures, those who serve God will be prepared and will have everything they need to do every good work."--

--"Respect and reverence is based on what the 2nd greatest command. In that we are to show the same respect and reverence that we want to be shown."--

--"Do you have scripture that says other wise?
Otherwise I would say false. this is a doctrinal order ascribe to a method of religious worship, not a biblical one."--

I thought to add parts of a translation of Proverbs 9:10 Respect and obey the Lord.  This is the beginning of wisdom.

What may you judge by comparison of your words and what I added ?

Wisdom and knowledge are partly beyond words and that all of it comes from God.

Do you think that is true or false ?

--"Asked and answered.
Wisdom and Knowledge is a Gift of The holy Spirit. The words of Those who have been blessed with such a gift, can only be limited by God in what they know and can say. Those who do not have this Spiritual gift will find themselves "beyond words" most of their life.
So again, true and false depending on your personal relationship with God and the Holy Spirit."--

I'm still learning about you by investigation.  I think that some may think it false that all wisdom comes from God and some may think it true.

Wisdom and knowledge that comes from God becomes like a part of our being and our thinking of God goes higher.

Do you think that is true or false ?

--"Wisdom from God will equally shock and astound the speaker of those words, as anyone who hears them. Again, if it is the wisdom of God and not of self then the Id, will have no knowledge of it.
(Peter on the day of Pentecost.)"--

I thought to add Proverbs 1:5 If you are already wise, you will become even wiser.  And if you are smart, you will learn to understand 1:6 proverbs and sayings as well as words of wisdom and all kinds of riddles.

What may you judge by comparison of your words and what I added ?

I'm saying things in investigation of your character, you may agree I know little about you and that a person may say things to someone and then listen to their answer to learn more about them.

--Again, if you looking to discern the nature of one's character then do so via the sum total of their contextual content, not one word answers to questions found in a weekly news letter.--

I use The Bible and many other things to discern the nature of someone's character and those things, including The Bible are used by me when asking questions to someone.

--"Why? because the problem is the world (outside of church) has much greater depth and range than the black or white good or ignore classification you wish to judge me as. For example the people here are a good cross section or example of this. I would say most want to know God, the only problem is pride/they want to know him on their terms and not his. Now if I went to the majority of these guys with a true/false 'test' and only took the true false responses I could quickly deem everyone a heretic and move on. But, I fortunately stayed and dug a little deeper than the surface stuff. what I found are wounded believers. Most of which were injured/casualties of deeply held religious beliefs. The point being it take far more than a check list to evaluate someone. give it time and treat each new topic as if the last did not happen good or bad. don't hold grudges and over time you will build an accurate profile for everyone."--

I have a wide variety of questions and I'm not as simplistic as some may judge me to be.  I work to obey goodwill to your neighbour as yourself for God.  Do you think I'm going to treat people with contemptuous simplistic questions only, with no questions of depth and have little patience for people and little willing to understand them, whilst obeying the command goodwill to your neighbour as yourself for God ?

Do you think that question was much deeper than the question is this true or false ?

I appreciate any working to obey the command goodwill to your neighbor as yourself and you may compare that command to love your neighbor as yourself.

--"BCV?? "Good will to your neighbor."--

What may you think BCV means ?

"keeping in mind what may be the condition of the person or persons who you plan to speak to"

--"are you Mormon?"--

No, I'm not a Mormon.  Why did you ask that question ?

Thinking about that in the context of the paragraph it was in and that I put to you and thinking about it in terms of love/goodwill to your neighbor as yourself, do you think if a person is traumatized or timid, you should speak to them roughly or gently, with patience or impatience ?

I don't think arrogance is a strength.  I don't think being unmerciful by our words helps people.

--I think, traumatized person needs more than words. and the specifics of a situation should dictate how the traumatized person should be approached. Timid people get the same evaluation as anyone else.

Start with the truth and carefully reflect back tone timber escalate and or deescalate as needed.

Again all should be based on what the second command says. Treat others as you would want to be treated.--

I use goodwill to your neighbour as yourself.  I work to speak in unbiased tone and with patience.

Drich, you may look at my answers above this.

[Drich]

Drich, if a person lives their life morally, helps his loved ones, doesn't hurt anyone, supports charity, and does good works...but they don't accept or love or worship Jesus/God... are they still considered 'diseased' with sin?

Again the whole point to the disease analogy is to illustrate that 'morality' is NOT even a consideration when evaluating sin. You are comparing apples and oranges.

IF one is infected with the Zombie virus and is a person lives their life morally, helps his loved ones, doesn't hurt anyone, supports charity, and does good works... Does it have anything to do with whether or not they carry the virus or not?

Sin is a virus apart from morality/good works.

Our works are simply symptoms of said sin... In the analogy this would be the difference between an a-symptomatic patient and one presenting symptoms.
In other words yes, some who are infected with sin do bad deeds. while others are simply carriers of the virus.

So then the question becomes do you allow the infect to co-mingle with the vaccinated/recovering just because they are not currently symptomatic just because they are 'good people?'

The answer is no. The infected are quarantined period no matter what type of person they think they are. why? because the qualifier here has absolutely nothing to do with you being a good person. You are confusing Greek and Egyptian mythology with Christianity. Works of any kind do not merit Heaven/afterlife. It all comes down to whether or not you have had your 'shots' or not.

[The Grand Nudger]

The answer is no. The infected are quarantined period no matter what type of person they think they are. 

This is a lunatics opinion.  If this were true we'd be busy rounding up every hpv carrier.  Jesus christ.  They are quarantined, if they are even quarantined in the first place...and mostly they;re not because they don;t -need- to be...... until such a time that they no longer present a danger to themselves or others...or, more elaboratively...

 a person lives their life morally, helps his loved ones, doesn't hurt anyone, supports charity, and does good works...

b-mine.
..that sort of unimportant shit, in this silly little sin scheme you've cooked up.