The Anti-Christian conspiracy

Good to see you again! Did I ever thank you for helping me resolve how to handle life-threatening situations? If not, I meant to. Thanks again.

Okay, now. Where are we at today? Let's have a looksee...

Originally posted by thelibra
I could forgive the mistakes of the past, if the Christian community would apologize for them, such as the inquisition, the witch-huntings, the book burnings, the KKK,

*nods following so far*

Originally posted by thelibra
the slaughter of Native Americans in the Name of Jesus,

What? Hold up a second please. You believe the slaughter of Native Americans was for the name of Jesus? Okay, I have two words for you: Manifest Destiny. Why not throw James K. Polk against the wall and his political party at the time for making it happen? I'm very miffed at the Native American genocide. Let's give them a few fertile states back at least to say we're sorry. I'm getting miffed at the way the Amish are slowly being regulated into assimilation. It's the first I've heard this was because of Jesus. Perhaps some more background can help me out?

Originally posted by thelibra
the opression of all of God's peoples, even themselves, if only they would come forward, as a whole, and genuinely apologize for it. As yet, I have seen no such apology.

I apologize the my forefathers, lacking the reading and understanding of the Bible, causing the heinous crimes against humanity including but not limited to tragedies such as the inquisition, the witch-huntings, the book burnings, and the KKK. I apologize for myself in the way I've mistreated people (I can recall moments) due to my own selfishness and pride, missing the proper direction of Jesus where I am to love my God, love my neighbor, and love my enemy. I am not the whole Christian community, nor can any one person on this earth move the whole Christian community to act as an accord. I can however be accountable for myself, testify that other Christians do in fact feel this way, and let it start here and now if these apologies have not been made before.

Originally posted by thelibra
If you (the Christians as a whole) want things to change, start with your hearts and souls.

Amen. I seem to recall this being said before about pointing out a speck of sawdust in our brother's eye without first removing the plank in our own eye... (Matthew 7:3)

I totally respect the fairness in your posts. *takes a note: less Christian hypocrisy. Gottit*

One more point if I may. Does one seek God because they want to be like other people?


[edit on 31-3-2005 by saint4God]

OK saint, ur obviously an educated person. Why do you go for the whole christ thing ?

Originally posted by JamesBlonde
OK saint, ur obviously an educated person. Why do you go for the whole christ thing ?

Thank you. Much appreciated on the compliment . We hear so little of them these days, especially here. I gotta say I was more taken off guard by this question than any posed so far here. I'll try to be brief (because I recently moved written testimony to a MS Word doc. which took up about 2 pages).

I was by nature a very stubborn person. The term I used to describe how I was is - Aggressively Agnostics. A lot of agnostics believe, "I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, who knows?" Not me though. In my spirialing depression that when we die, we simply cease to exist, I therefore dared anything that did exist beyond the human realm to show itself and I would believe. In retrospect, this kind of evocation was a stupid thing to do. I should'a checked to see if God existed first. At the time though, since I would cease to exist in a few years anyway and was contemplating suicide to speed the process, I figured "what have I got to lose?". Well, that's when all hell broke loose literally speaking. I didn't go to Hell, it came to me and I was getting shoved by someone who was growing very impatient on my lack of decisioning because of that challenge I posed above. A kind of "you belief, you see it, now worship!". Long story short, in a fit of desparation I tried a lot of different things to escape or undo what I did. That's when I bumped into a God representative who gave me some advice to try. Thinking he was a royal nut-job (as I'm sure everyone reading this thinks of me), I blew him off and went along my 'not-so-merry' way. When the heat came back again, I followed his advice figuring again, "what have I got to lose?". That advice is similar to my signature link which is why I carry it with me on every post. *BAM!* Success at last. I've hedged over a lot of details to save space and maintain a kind of cohesion but that's basically it. I know, I know, I'm crazy, delusional, yadda yadda, go ahead I'm used to it. Anyway, nobody is going to totally believe me especially in full explanation form and that's intentional. My journey is not supposed to be anyone else's. My proof will not make anyone else believe. It's up to us as individuals to take a step towards God and get our own proofs.

I know this makes me sound less educated because I don't have DeoxyriboNucleic Acid samples of God Himself, but relationships aren't build on DNA. They're build on belief (proven pattern of behavior), trust (reliance on the best occurring without being directly involved), and faith (unproven but yet to come). Sometimes the answers are there before I take action. Sometimes I'm asked to take action and then the answers will come during or after I do. As stated though, the greatest of all these traits is love because love never fails. God is the God of these things and anything that goes against these things are not God. How do I know? I've tried them and each time the result came out true. I'm trying them now, with the hope that they will again be true, though through belief I know they will although it's currently unproven.

Sorry if it seems abstract, but would welcome any questions or expand on points. Details on testimony I'd rather U2U on though since it can be a lot and I can hear the butcher knives sharpening in the background of those who want nothing more than to reinforce the idea that I'm out of my mind.

Pray, train, study.
God bless.

[edit on 31-3-2005 by saint4God]

Skadi_The_Evil_Elf and thelibra…excellent posts.

It is this type of circular logicthat gnaws at me the most about Christians:

From a Christian perspective God allowed an enemy to inflict some terror on the U.S. for a couple of hours and then shut it down, to wake us up.

And:

As a Christian we know everything goes through God first, good things and bad. If it touches us He brought it for a reason.

as it is a twist to fit representation all too often invoked by Christians that shows the hypocrisy and supreme flaws in not only their doctrine but their understanding of the book which they love to quote so.

They insist God gave us freewill, yet when it suits their purposes, they make statements such as the above negating that very freewill. If God allowed it then he is obviously being selective with freewill, and if everything has to go through him first and he brings it on us, then he has intercepted freewill to allow only those freewill acts that suits his need, and denied those that do not.

How is it possible then to take this religion seriously?

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
How is it possible then to take this religion seriously?

Predestined or Free Will? This is currently a discussion I'm having with fellow Christians. Ever play The Sims?

Throughout history Christians had persecuted those who do not believe in their religion. For instance, thousands of Native Americans, Spanish Inquisition, the subduing of the Celts, and many more. This is a prime example of how Christians are usually the ones who commit acts of atrocity. In today's time, they still do this, but they do it phycologically. They feel that they NEED to sell their religion to others, so if there is a conspiricy then it is the Christians themselves.

Also, Christians feel that their religion is the only right one around. If this is the case then why do they not mention thousands of years of Chinese history, Northern European history, African history, or the Americas. Notice that the bible only contains what is now Isreal, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and the Roman Empire. So is it this evidence enough that it IS a man made religion, and not a divine one.

Ah, Saint, my friend (and one of the few Christians whom I deeply respect). Good to see you again!

Originally posted by saint4God
Good to see you again! Did I ever thank you for helping me resolve how to handle life-threatening situations? If not, I meant to. Thanks again.

And likewise, thank you for convincing me there are still some good Christians left in the world. I never did get to find out what your resolution was, though. You'll have to tell me sometime.

Originally posted by saint4God

Originally posted by thelibra
the slaughter of Native Americans in the Name of Jesus,

What? Hold up a second please. You believe the slaughter of Native Americans was for the name of Jesus? Okay, I have two words for you: Manifest Destiny. Why not throw James K. Polk against the wall and his political party at the time for making it happen? I'm very miffed at the Native American genocide. Let's give them a few fertile states back at least to say we're sorry. I'm getting miffed at the way the Amish are slowly being regulated into assimilation. It's the first I've heard this was because of Jesus. Perhaps some more background can help me out?

Yes, a myriad of reasons caused Native American slaughter, the three biggest ones were Manifest Destiny (which I can't really blame them for), Smallpox (which...let's face it, would have happened even in the friendliest of contacts), and Missionary Forces of the Christians. I can gather some sources for you later on, but it should be pretty easy to do a search and find page after page, after entire books of history about how the Christians had pretty much this priority level for dealing with Native Americans:

1. Rape, Pillage, Burn, and Kill them, till they listen.
2. Once they listen, they can convert or be killed.
3. Once they convert, they can cease all previous tribal religion, language, dress, lands, and practices, or be killed.
4. Once they dress up like the white man's puppets, move to a reservation, and abandon their old ways, they can go to church, or be killed. But not the white people's church, because some things just don't mix, right? They can go to their own church.

And don't even get me started on the whole Conquistador thing.

Now granted my assessment is a tad tongue in cheek, but not nearly as exagerated as one might think. My people, and countless tribes like them, were slaughtered in the name of Jesus, by all manner of Europeans. It seems that it was the first time Europe ever really united for a cause, in fact: to kill as many of the "heathens" as possible.

Originally posted by saint4God
I apologize the my forefathers, lacking the reading and understanding of the Bible, causing the heinous crimes against humanity including but not limited to tragedies such as the inquisition, the witch-huntings, the book burnings, and the KKK. I apologize for myself in the way I've mistreated people (I can recall moments) due to my own selfishness and pride, missing the proper direction of Jesus where I am to love my God, love my neighbor, and love my enemy. I am not the whole Christian community, nor can any one person on this earth move the whole Christian community to act as an accord. I can however be accountable for myself, testify that other Christians do in fact feel this way, and let it start here and now if these apologies have not been made before.

Saint, if you will excuse the pun, you're a "testament" to my belief that there are still some good Christians out there. That was a very heartfelt and well thought-out apology. You're a credit to your religion, and thank you for reminding us that it's never too late for healing to begin.

Originally posted by saint4God
One more point if I may. Does one seek God because they want to be like other people?

That's deep. Honestly, I don't know... just as I can never pretend to know the mind of God, I can never know the mind of my fellow man (and woman). There's probably a myriad of reasons, to be sure. Everything from transferrance away from one's own problems, to striving for perfection. The actions of gods in many religions, including Christianity, often seem to have human traits. Does the god emulate the human, does human emulate the god? Or was it human attributing human features to something odd, and calling it god? So many questions... if we have a philosophy forum, I'd be delighted to continue this discussion there.

Oh, and PS:

You have voted saint4God for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.

[edit on 3/31/2005 by thelibra]

Originally posted by thelibra
And don't even get me started on the whole Conquistador thing.

Touche' on that point in some regards (because of their waiving of the Christian flag to justify battle), though I'd argue that it was entirely political and greed motivated as well. I don't recall Jesus saying, "And thou shalt sack the Incans and take their Gold!". In fact it was the opposite, "love your neighbor" and "love your enemy". I'm sorry, but there's no sympathy for Pizzarro on my end.

Here's an interesting summary on it: www.pbs.org...

Funny how there's no mention of it being "for the glory of God". I have a conspiracy for ya'll. The conquerers had to slash and burn the missionaries too many times because they were making too many friends with the enemy. I'm sure they framed 'the savages' too. Perhaps I should do some research on that...

Originally posted by thelibra

Originally posted by saint4God
One more point if I may. Does one seek God because they want to be like other people?

I can never know the mind of my fellow man (and woman). There's probably a myriad of reasons, to be sure.

Correctomundo! We cannot tell another's heart. We as people have a tendancy to judge their actions and what they say. If I looked across the church, I could not pick out which ones are true Christians and which ones are 'trying to pay the meter' believing it will save them a spot in heaven. Even after seeing and talking with them, we can say things like, "that didn't seem like what the Bible tells us to do" or "that's an un-christlike attitude" but you never really know why they feel that way unless you walk a mile in their sandals. So, if you're not there for the people, why go? Well, simple answer. You're there for you. You, as the church goer, are looking to strengthing your connection with God. Can you do that outside of church? Sure, but it helps you focus from all the other distractions the world has like the phone, tv, chores, etc. So we go "okay, lemme go to church so I can focus". Then we get there and start looking around "wow, that perfume is strong", "I wish people wouldn't chew gum so loud in church", "can't s/he control her/his kids?", "oh my gosh, I can't believe they're wearing that to church", etc. What happened to maintaining focus? Then it hits us! Our little Attention Deficet Disorder society has us paying attention to this stuff instead of our true reason for being there! As you said, Christians need to be paying attention to themselves. They gotta go there, listen, read and work on their personal connection with God. What good is it to go to church and be concerned with how everyone else is worshipping? None whatsoever.

Also, I'll have to dig around to see if I can find the discussion on self-defense and U2U it to you too you it to you too.

Originally posted by saint4God
Touche' on that point in some regards (because of their waiving of the Christian flag to justify battle), though I'd argue that it was entirely political and greed motivated as well.

Definitely, but at the time the Church and Politics were pretty much hand in hand. However, people are less hesitant to commit atrocities in the name of Politics. Committing them in the name of Religion is much less intimidating, because there is a god who while give them absolution for doing those things.

Originally posted by saint4God
I don't recall Jesus saying, "And thou shalt sack the Incans and take their Gold!".

It was in the book of Adverbs, 6:66, continued with "Then dance about on their graves singing 'Hallelujeah!'..."

Originally posted by saint4God
In fact it was the opposite, "love your neighbor" and "love your enemy". I'm sorry, but there's no sympathy for Pizzarro on my end.

True. Which is why I still like to read the Bible despite not being a Christian. It's a good book. It has some really useful information, and some good ideas. It has bad ideas too, but many of them are good. I'm not bashing Jesus or the Bible, I'm bashing the people who commit atrocities in the name of Christianity.

Originally posted by saint4God
I have a conspiracy for ya'll. The conquerers had to slash and burn the missionaries too many times because they were making too many friends with the enemy. I'm sure they framed 'the savages' too. Perhaps I should do some research on that...

That would be an excellent topic to research, and I would say a very likely conspiracy at that. I wonder if Spain was ever made to pay reparations to the Meso-Americans?

Originally posted by saint4God
They gotta go there, listen, read and work on their personal connection with God. What good is it to go to church and be concerned with how everyone else is worshipping? None whatsoever.

I think this is one of the reasons why I've always felt my church to be things that God created: mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc... Out there, things are just so much more rarified. I'm not distracted by other people, or by fancy stained glass windows, dogma, singing, or hard feelings. It's just me, and God... out there enjoying what most people shun.

Originally posted by saint4God
Wow!

Cool! I haven't gotten one before nor expected to with the bias in my discussions. Muchos gracias!

I'm surprised you haven't received more. I find your arguements to be well thought out, educated, and even pliable. Something rare to find in any ideology.

Originally posted by thelibra
Definitely, but at the time the Church and Politics were pretty much hand in hand. However, people are less hesitant to commit atrocities in the name of Politics. Committing them in the name of Religion is much less intimidating,

True dat.

Originally posted by thelibra
because there is a god who while give them absolution for doing those things.

Heyhey, just because He doesn't run in and smack everybody up all the time doesn't mean He's supporting it. That's a bit Old Covenant. He's got that new promise, where He puts the information on the table and let's people come up to it and take a look. Now, if they've got issue with what He puts out there, well, that's what I'm supposed to help with. Those 'Crusaders for god' did worship something, but it wasn't God.

Originally posted by thelibra

Originally posted by saint4God
I don't recall Jesus saying, "And thou shalt sack the Incans and take their Gold!".

It was in the book of Adverbs, 6:66, continued with "Then dance about on their graves singing 'Hallelujeah!'..."

Hoo boy! Crackin' me up. It'd have to be in a 666 verb modified book to reveal the dark source it came from. Glad it ain't my God. I can neither kill nor dance upon graves. Those who've seen me dance would even argue that I couldn't dance at all . But it's techno! It's not supposed to look great!

Originally posted by thelibra
True. Which is why I still like to read the Bible despite not being a Christian. It's a good book. It has some really useful information, and some good ideas. It has bad ideas too, but many of them are good. I'm not bashing Jesus or the Bible, I'm bashing the people who commit atrocities in the name of Christianity.

I'd be interested in hearing the bad ideas sometime. I'll join you in bashing the people who commit atrocities in the name of Christianity. Where's my sWORD? Ah, right my side the whole time.

Originally posted by thelibra
That would be an excellent topic to research, and I would say a very likely conspiracy at that. I wonder if Spain was ever made to pay reparations to the Meso-Americans?

Probably the same reparations we did, but I don't know if alcohol and casinos are that popular in Middle America. They can have my state. Everyone complains about it anyway.

Originally posted by thelibra
I think this is one of the reasons why I've always felt my church to be things that God created: mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc... Out there, things are just so much more rarified. I'm not distracted by other people, or by fancy stained glass windows, dogma, singing, or hard feelings. It's just me, and God... out there enjoying what most people shun.

Cool! I'm hoping to do the same one day. I have this picture of a remote hilltop in China next to a small village. A full day of study, meditation and wushu to keep healthy. I've been called into the fray though. Though stressful, it has a great deal of reward.

Originally posted by thelibra
I'm surprised you haven't received more. I find your arguements to be well thought out, educated, and even pliable. Something rare to find in any ideology.

Most excellent. I enjoy these talks because I feel I'm getting somewhere. It's nice to see things from different angles, gives a more complete picture.

Even being home sick seems to have worked out as a blessing.

Pray, train, study.
God bless.

[edit on 31-3-2005 by saint4God]

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
They insist God gave us freewill, yet when it suits their purposes, they make statements such as the above negating that very freewill. If God allowed it then he is obviously being selective with freewill, and if everything has to go through him first and he brings it on us, then he has intercepted freewill to allow only those freewill acts that suits his need, and denied those that do not.

free·will ( P ) Pronunciation Key (frwl)
adj.
Done of one's own accord; voluntary

People have free will. Since we're living after the cross, He will not Force anyone to accept Christ as Savior. God is always trying to grab people's attention and have it turn from off of themselve and onto Him. So if God sets up an "attention getter" the person is totally free to turn toward or away from God.

Another thing is God is sovereign
sov·er·eign ( P ) Pronunciation Key (svr-n, svrn)
n.
One that exercises supreme, permanent authority, especially in a nation or other governmental unit, as:
.
Having supreme rank or power: a sovereign prince.
Paramount; supreme:

There are certain things people need to accept, and I think this is one of them. God is in charge. He has a plan that for HIS universe. It won't always be filled with death that will come to an end.

Another thing that is harder to accept is the sin problem man has and that it needs to be solved. You can try all you want to "be good" but the bad still creeps in. By the way all of creation was subjected to the effects of sin when mankind fell in the garden.

You may not realize it but God's standard is perfection. We cannot attain this goal on our own. Some would lead you to believe you can after a certain amount of reincarnated lives or if a leap of "evolution" occurs.
God will allow people to believe that. You can choose that if you want.

There is a point at which God will let a person be given totally over to self so if that's your desire it can happen..

When God allows something bad to happen people don't understand and I certainly don't know all the why's. Why does He allow a tsunami to come after an earthquake and kill thousands and then 4 months later another earthquake almost as big in almost the same spot hits and there is no tsunami. He allowed one tsuanmi and stopped another from occurring.
You will never have all the why's answered.

We see the bad stuff that happens. Terrorists attacks and tsunami's and child abductions and since we know they were allowed by God we don't understand completely(which is understandable). This one will be harder to believe since it concerns stuff that might have happened and we won't know until eternity. Why wasn't there another tsunami in Indonesia with this last earthquake, did God prevent one. Why was Elizabeth smart found alive instead of dead like most child abductee's. Ever been traveling down the road at 65 mph and have a huge semi beside you and cars behind you and in front of you and cars going off the interstate and some coming on and silently hope nothing goes wrong. Does God prevent some accidents(if He does thank Him don't wish He were not preventing them.) When eternity comes many things will be known then that aren't now.

So how does knowing that everything must go through God first cause doubt. I'm glad that things go through Him and he prevents more than I could probably imagine. And when something does come my way it certainly doesn't mean I will always know specifically why, but as a christian if it has come then there's a reason that He allowed it so I can be changed for the better and most times it's so we can reach others.

I guess if you are not a christian then none of this will make sense. But remember God is always trying to get your attention in circumstances. How you react to then is YOUR choice.



[edit on 31-3-2005 by dbrandt]

Originally posted by dbrandt
People have free will. Since we're living after the cross, He will not Force anyone to accept Christ as Savior.

I read you stated that you may be wasting your time, perhaps your edit removed same, perhaps it was on another post, however this is so only if you insist on not logically looking at what you have stated. Let us address your statements and see if in fact they are in agreement with each other, or changing to suit your need.

He will not Force anyone to accept Christ as Savior. God is always trying to grab people's attention and have it turn from off of themselve and onto Him. So if God sets up an "attention getter" the person is totally free to turn toward or away from God.

He it is an attention getter as set up by God. An attention getter by which the person can choose to react to or not.

Previously you claimed:

As a Christian we know everything goes through God first, good things and bad. If it touches us He brought it for a reason.

Which you used in support of:

God allowed an enemy to inflict some terror on the U.S. for a couple of hours and then shut it down, to wake us up.

Now then, analyzing the latter, an enemy of their own freewill decided to inflict harm on the US, which they would have decided to do by their own choosing, and if freewill did indeed exist, then the statement that “god allowed” them to follow through means that he made a decision on that particular freewill plan to not halt it. Your statement then is claiming that he decides which actions man will and will not be permitted to do, and if he decides to either halt an attack or allow one to take place, he is in fact in control of that action.

With regard the former statement; if he has given man freewill, then there is no reason for all of our considered actions to first be screened by him, as there is no purpose to this screening. This then endorses his allowing the attack, it means that when we think of an action, it is immediately screened by him and he then either gives us the go ahead to follow through or not. The freewill therefore cannot be freewill, since what you describe is free thought. By the definition you provide “Done of one's own accord; voluntary” the action is exclusionary of anyone but ourselves.

Now, which is it dbrandt; God “allowed” and therefore decided not to stop the attack, or God stayed out of it because he gave man the exclusive right to act as they deem? It cannot be both if you are a Christian, since you are required to believe in freewill.

You may not realize it but God's standard is perfection. We cannot attain this goal on our own. Some would lead you to believe you can after a certain amount of reincarnated lives or if a leap of "evolution" occurs.
God will allow people to believe that. You can choose that if you want.

That is what has been force-fed you. I will repeat it over and over, God did not grant any man, woman or child, an exclusive pipeline to him over other men, women and children. To believe otherwise is to believe that he placed anyone that is not clergy at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing him. This is the inherent and hard flaw behind religious dogma and the books published in their names. For it means that he gave a minority among us the exclusive right to understand him, and to preach to the rest what that understanding is as though they can somehow cause us to develop what amounts to his gift to them. On top of which, when we don’t God then turns around and blames those not imparted with this gift for not having the gift. It makes absolutely no sense. That is akin to demanding a baby to walk to the fridge for his/her meal when s/he is hungry or suffer the consequences of starvation if s/he will not.

So yes, he is perfection and we have to stop thinking of his ways as being less than perfect, such as outlined above. It does not stand to reason that God would not have implanted with every single one of us the innate sense of himself, and leave it to circumstance and society for others to tell us who and what he is. Every single human being feels the emotions of love or anger at some point of our lives, this is innate, he gave them to us, he planted them within us and it is up to us to get in touch with those and learn how we are effected by same, and all we need do is find his implanted emotion/sense/self in the same way.

The belief that we live only once, sleep/die for thousands of years or even seconds is absolutely ludicrous in that, it presumes first of all that God has pre-determined X number of years for all of mankind to accept him even though he knows that he will be damning most to some furnace, which also suggests that his fuse will either give at some unknown time even to him, or he has X count of people he wants washing his feet. This also pre-supposes that all humans are born without disadvantage. Your belief cannot possibly explain how a baby living for all of one minute could meet the preconceived notion that they exercised freewill to accept God, or what lessons of life or God that baby would have learnt or why he would even give a life to take it back one minute later. Reincarnation does, and makes sense if one truly believes in God’s benevolence. With every life we live, we learn, and we learn what we did not learn previously until we are totally at peace with ourselves and the mysterious of the universe and with God, and we learn this not because we are told we must, or blackmailed into believing that we must, but because we just do, without the aid of external influence, and on our own volition.

It is not God’s plan to exclude any of his children from his house, just as it is not any loving parent’s plan to exclude theirs from their house. We inherently want all that is good and best and upstanding for our children, where we as far as we know have only one shot at that, but God does not, he has as many as he deems necessary to see his children achieve this. Therefore, he would have no qualifying time limit, for time is infinite, after all, he created infinite. We would like to know that we spend our days in eternity with all of our loved ones, why then do some of us presume that God who gave us this quality has a love tap that he can turn off and on at will?

Why wasn't there another tsunami in Indonesia with this last earthquake, did God prevent one.

Our planet is a living system, just as we as humans adjust to our environment so too must our planet adjust to its environment. We humans have grown in size, have an appendix and set of tonsils we know nothing about, which suggests we have gone through some sort of change, so too does our living earth which creates landmass and also destroys same, just as we believe that suns have lived and died, so too must we understand geological changes caused the latter. For all we know, the earth is either reacting to what we humans have done to it, or it too is going through its stages of growth toward death.

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
I read you stated that you may be wasting your time, perhaps your edit removed same,

I did start out that I may be wasting my time and then I thought about it and decided that that was not an appropriate statement to make so I did edit it out. I meant that I wondered if my post would help out or hurt. Probably both depending on who you are.

And reading my post over again before the cross God didn't make anyone choose Him as God. Does this mean that after choosing who your God will be for eternity man's free will is limited, I don't know I'll have to study up on that.

After that God's sovereignty is interwoven with His creation, and I don't think a finite mind can adequately describe or comprehend this. I tried in a longer post to impress this into words and didn't succeed.

I do know that I am grateful God saved me and that all events are seen by Him before they happen and that He is the filter through which they flow. And on a world level evil is under restraint by Him.


[edit on 31-3-2005 by dbrandt]

The reality is NEW age secularism vs christianity.

Secularism : Supports anal shaffing, lesbianism, witchcraft, femism dating life, having alot of sexual parnters, women being the same as men. Killing unborn babies to baal, ritual scarfice killing people that can't feed themselves, worshiping the dollar, supporting immperisalism and destruction of marrige, into orgies.

US contitution is SECULARIST religion. The founding father's were not christian's but anti-christian. They had the christian ideology so they created their own SECULARISM. Which i described on the top.

This secularist empire is infecting europe, and now trying to infect the middleast.

Just watch the OC and see the preaching piest hollywood, telling young females to lye in bed with women, like they do to their husbands.



[edit on 31-3-2005 by TheTruth123]

Originally posted by dbrandtI did start out that I may be wasting my time and then I thought about it and decided that that was not an appropriate statement to make so I did edit it out. I meant that I wondered if my post would help out or hurt. Probably both depending on who you are.

We should all seek to expand our horizons, and therefore we can only be hurt or think we will hurt if we have no desire to learn and feel that we can never learn something new from others because we have all of the answers.

And reading my post over again before the cross God didn't make anyone choose Him as God. Does this mean that after choosing who your God will be for eternity man's free will is limited, I don't know I'll have to study up on that.

I did not claim otherwise. What it boils down to is this; you believe that the story of the one true God comes to you first and foremost from The Bible, then obviously, what you have been taught or told about what is in that Bible. My position dismisses entirely that man was born stupid with no innate knowledge of something greater than he and therefore is in need of learning about a divine presence from said sources. You and those who focus solely on the nature of God by virtue of that book or by how others tell you it should be interpreted, fail to give God credit for being smarter than to have to advertise himself by such nuance where such nuance did not even always exist, and where you have therefore consequently come to believe that only the God as defined in said book is what God is. This then leads to your freewill question, which is directly tied not to your Bible, for the only freewill within the pages representative of the first 4000 years of history pertains to sacrifices, but to an interpretation by church elders on something Paul had to say. So you ask these questions expecting that your Bible and religious doctrine is the only truth. To this I say no! and therefore your freewill definition as I have previously outlined is flawed, for I certainly do believe in freewill, but logically I have come to understand that God being perfect, would not presume to impart same and command control of it at the same time.

After that God's sovereignty is interwoven with His creation, and I don't think a finite mind can adequately describe or comprehend this. I tried in a longer post to impress this into words and didn't succeed.

Correct, one such mind cannot understand this so it is very wrong indeed to capsualize his intent as being limited in scope, time or patience, and worse, to express his benevolence as being limited, dogmatic, selective, stereotypical, vindictive, cunning, as well as fair-weathered. That is exactly how he is portrayed from Genesis to Revelation.

I do know that I am grateful God saved me and that all events are seen by Him before they happen and that He is the filter through which they flow. And on a world level evil is under restraint by Him.

I understand this and I do not wish to take this away from you, yet the issue I have with adults who were saved is compound:

They have walked around for umpteen years not listening to that innate sense of guidance God gave them, then through despair or desperation suddenly find themselves saved by a book and or preacher of that book;

They then feel this need to demand that others see it their new found way and understand there is no other to salvation;

They have never yet allowed themselves to tap into the innate sense to find God because they are subconsciously afraid that should they let go of this book or the preacher, they will lose God.

All of that is reprsentative of a superfluous and implanted ideaological impression of God. To me there is no depth to anyone who has to point to verses in The Bible to prove his or her God, since if came from their heart and their soul the wisdom would be their own and not attributable to anyone else. And believe me, people would feel the sincerity in such a portrayal.



[edit on 4/1/05 by SomewhereinBetween]

Somewhere

To this I say no! and therefore your freewill definition as I have previously outlined is flawed, for I certainly do believe in freewill, but logically I have come to understand that God being perfect, would not presume to impart same and command control of it at the same time.

Somewhere,

You seem to link freewill and free action together, can you tell me why? If I am forced to do something against my will, does my will necessarily follow? Does my will conform to my action? Do my actions always conform to my will?
We agree that freewill exists, but why do you say it is necessary for it be coupled with action?

The improper mixing of these two seperate things, is the cause much confussion, in understanding of God and man. It is really a question of power. What is the power that follows freewill, and what is the Power of God and do these two things collide.

Somewhere:
To me there is no depth to anyone who has to point to verses in The Bible to prove his or her God, since if came from their heart and their soul the wisdom would be their own and not attributable to anyone else. And believe me, people would feel the sincerity in such a portrayal.

Well, well, you and I seemed to have found agreement in an odd way. Quite right you are too say, pointing to verses to establish God, is in error. As was God void before scripture, or must one read to be saved? Of, course the logical proofs of God are contained in scripture. In fact Holy Scripture is a proof in and of itself.
Here, here, in the wisdom of necessity of the heart, in the knowing of God. For if God is not in the heart, what is the use?

edit: added second thought


[edit on 1-4-2005 by Balaams donkey]

Originally posted by dbrandt

Originally posted by madmanacrosswater
So we wake up by invading another country that had not much of anything to do with the attacks? We kill 100,000 Iraqis and mame many more..is this how "we" woke up?
Terri Schiaro is Florida a perfect example. Poor girl. Has become nothing but a religious and political football. Why do many want her to "live" when any true Christian should know to let her go so she may live again.

The U.S. is drifting away from God. There have probably been those who didn't know God from it's inception. But as a nation we are in God's face now and approving alot of sinful actions and behavior. Watch the TV and you'll see sin abound. When 9/11 happened people everywhere looked around. As a christian we know everything goes through God first, good things and bad. If it touches us He brought it for a reason. 9/11 affected us as a nation. When a tornado hits a town in the midwest, the effects don't spread throughout the entire nation. 9/11 affected the entire nation and one could argue the world. God judges/disciplines, I haven't thought of a way to say that, that it sounds good and smells like roses. He disciplines me personally, I don't do everything right, it's a fact of life.

I would like you to reply more on your Terri Schiavo comment. Did you mean she'll be reincarnated or that she would be in heaven? She'll go to heaven if she accepted Christ alone for her salvation.

"She'll go to heaven if she accepted Christ alone for her salvation"-If she was a human deep in the jungle of South America that had never heard of Jesus Christ would she or would she not go to heaven? One who follows that line of thinking have NOT truly given thought to what Christ was speaking of.

Reincarnation? Any good Christian knows the soul never dies. For the soul to die would be a death of a small piece of God. Way to many follow the teachings of the Church way too literally. Jesus spoke of love. Yet, unfortunately many "Christians" today seem to think their "title" gives them the right to be very judgemental about others. Something GOD does not want.

Nobody does everything right. That is the mortal, human side of us. However, one's spirit does know right from wrong. Everything goes thru God? I'm sorry. God may know of everything, but not all goes through him. If so our existence would be worthless. We are all a part of God. We are here for his service, and to help him experience himself.

The true ruination of our nation. TV evangelists who line their pockets under the guise of Jesus and God. People wanting the government to stick their noses in decisions they have no business doing.

Jesus said once to pray in solitude. Yet people get upset when a prayer can't be said somewhere? Seems like many have a hard time figuring it out.

Jesus and God are love. So simple, and everyone wants to make it so hard. WHY?

I have to disagree with the "sin" everywhere one turns. The only true sin is not recognizing God. He gave us a mind and body to think FREELY for ourselves. If we didn't we would cease to exist as a part of God.

[edit on 1-4-2005 by madmanacrosswater]

Originally posted by saint4God

Originally posted by thelibra
True. Which is why I still like to read the Bible despite not being a Christian. It's a good book. It has some really useful information, and some good ideas. It has bad ideas too, but many of them are good. I'm not bashing Jesus or the Bible, I'm bashing the people who commit atrocities in the name of Christianity.

I'd be interested in hearing the bad ideas sometime.

(grins) Still haven't had a chance to type them up, but as today is dog slow at the office, I'll do so as my next post, with verses to back it up.

Originally posted by TheTruth123
The reality is NEW age secularism vs christianity.

Secularism : Supports anal shaffing, lesbianism, witchcraft, femism dating life, having alot of sexual parnters, women being the same as men. Killing unborn babies to baal, ritual scarfice killing people that can't feed themselves, worshiping the dollar, supporting immperisalism and destruction of marrige, into orgies.

US contitution is SECULARIST religion. The founding father's were not christian's but anti-christian. They had the christian ideology so they created their own SECULARISM. Which i described on the top.

My god, I hope you're being sarcastic. Where the hell are you getting this? Did you even watch the last U.S. election poll results? The Moral Majority won! (tries to swallow rising bile). We'll be lucky if science and sex aren't illegal by 2008! I say this jokingly, of course, but marriage is in no way trying to be destroyed by the U.S. Legislators. If anything, it's being fortified with their own narrow-minded views of what marriage should be.

As for these things you consider to be sexual deviance, it's real simple: don't do it or watch it if it offends you. I myself have quite a large number of close gay and bisexual friends, but I have no interest gay culture. As in, I don't like "Will & Grace", feel no obligation to march in a parade, and have zero interest in going to any drag queen contests, yet one of my best friends does all the above as well as things I'd rather not think about. So why am I this person's friend? Two reasons: One, because they are a good, reliable, intelligent, and moral person who has repeatedly proven themselves to me (qualities I'd demand of any friend). Two, because what someone does with their personal sex life is their own business, not mine, not yours, and not the government's. THAT last part, about it not being anyone's business, THAT is what the American founding fathers intended.

As for the baby-killing, and baal worshiping, I suggest you step away from whatever you're reading and come see a little reality for yourself. I've never even had communication with a single person in America who thought that baby killing was a good idea, or who worshipped Baal, and I can't recall even hearing of someone who did either. Ritual sacrifice, I've heard of, but never known anyone who thought it was a good idea, and those people are considered just as evil and terrible in our country as yours.

As for women being the same as men... Perhaps you'd rather your woman be servile, wait on you hand and foot, keep her face hidden behind a head scarf when around anyone else's presence but yours, stay home, cook, and make babies? Then find a woman who will agree to it, and live that lifestyle. But trying to impose that belief on the rest of the world is neither your right, nor mine. You can live your life however you want in America, no one forces you to do anything except let other people live their own lives. How is that evil?

And suggesting that Imperialism was ever the intention of our founding fathers is just downright ignorant. It's documented over and over and over through history that we were founded on an isolationist policy, and it wasn't until the rest of the world begged us to help out in the first World War that we became involved in warfare on a global scale. Even then, we tried to return to an isolationist policy, and found that the world would not let us.

I will freely admit that I feel like there are many theaters of war that we had or have no business being in. One of which was the most recent Iraq war. That is, however, my opinion, and I am not privy to either the future, or the secrets held in the Pentagon that made those final decisions. And I dont' think it was right of us to change the government of another country that isn't ours, either. I would even go so far as to admit Bush shows lots of signs of an imperialist, which angers just as many Americans as it does the rest of the world (don't forget, almost half the nation voted against him). However, he will be gone in a little less than three years, and after all the crappy foreign policy, I'd be willing to bet the next President thinks very carefully before ever invading another nation.

In other words, I don't agree with everything our country does. In some cases, I'm downright angry by it. But to espouse that we are a bunch of baby-killing, baal-worshiping, imperialistic sexual deviants is not only ignorant, it's ridiculous to anyone who has ever been to America. It'd be like me saying that the Middle East is full of bomb-swallowing oil barons who worship cars and keep harems of battered women.

Originally posted by TheTruth123
This secularist empire is infecting europe, and now trying to infect the middleast.

It's not corruption. No one puts a gun to your head and says that you have to participate in a particular lifestyle. Heck, you can even organize a protest group and call them names, if you want. That's one of the beauties of Freedom. Anyone can like or dislike whomever they want, publicly. But if you ever want to live in a country with basic human rights, you must respect their right to have their own life and lifestyle as well. Sure, you might have to deal with the fact that one day some race or gender you dislike might be your boss in your job, but another beauty of freedom is that you can quit! If your bigotry is so precious to you, then you can walk out of your workplace, or the place you do business with, and find another one. And the beauty of capitalism is that you actually have a selection to choose from. While bigotry might limit your choices of how you live your lifestyle, it is a self-imposed limit that you chose to adopt.

The fact is that freedom does not take away from how you want to live your life, it only adds more possibilities for people who don't want to live it like you do.

Originally posted by TheTruth123
Just watch the OC and see the preaching piest hollywood, telling young females to lye in bed with women, like they do to their husbands.

That's called TV Fiction. Frankly, most of it sickens me. I think the show "Desperate Housewives" is an abomination, personally. So you know what I do? This will blow your mind... I DON'T WATCH IT! I change the channel if I stumble across it, and I watch something less offense to me, such as the Chapelle Show. That's another benefit of freedom. Yes, Hollywood produces a lot of crap, but it is not a religion, it's just a money-making tool. Make something shocking enough, and sheep will watch it. Don't want to contribute to them? Don't be a sheep!

And guess what? Freedom gives people the chance to not be a sheep.

So anyway, in conclusion, either you're a troll or you're ignorant of the facts. Either way, I've had a lot of fun arguing with you.



[edit on 4/1/2005 by thelibra]

Originally posted by thelibra
baal-worshiping

(quoting thelibra because I'm interested libra's thoughts, but anyone is welcomed to jump in)

Hey, speaking of. Here's a link that suggests some of that is going on:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Specifically, someone presents a website that goes into detail here:

www.helpingmormons.org...

I have still have an unanswered question on the thread if anyone is able to assist.

Who celebrated Ishtar (Baal's gal) with chocolate bunnies and hiding eggs? That's a thread unto itself...


[edit on 1-4-2005 by saint4God]