Help With A Question?

[MarkAnthonyCozy]

“For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” 1 Cor 4:20

For us this power is the power of God’s love, “for God is love” 1 Jn 4:8

The most powerful testimony one can give to another is their own testimony of the power of God’s love working daily in one’s life. If there isn’t the daily working of God’s love then there can be no testimony of it.

In my study and prayer I’ve pondered the various religions and why they’ve existed. As for me I follow the God who loves me the most and for better or for worse I am his forever.

If Jesus loves me enough to lay down his life for me, how could I follow another?

But the joy! Once one experiences the joy there is no turning back.

I have also found that the world does indeed hate Christians. But we all have this inate need to come home to our point of origin, to the presence of the living God, the source of everlasting life. The closer we get the more difficult the struggle.

Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. Christians are called out of this world which is passing away to the kingdom of God which is everlasting.

Heathen Dawn; By your posts I see you are sensitive to things of the spirit. When the one who has been whispering in your ear reveals his true nature, will you turn away from him and turn to the living God? Call upon the name of Jesus Christ and the deceiver will flee from you! Turn away from that which brings death and turn to Jesus and the Holy Spirit will over shadow you and protect you. You will be filled beyond measure, overflowing with tears of joy beyond all reason.

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Heathen Dawn:

Only loosely, and not the Christian concept of it. I believe in life after death; but even the abodes of bliss are not a place of stagnation, not an eternal holiday camp, but a real life, with progress and struggles. There is no bodily pain, and you don’t have the mask of the flesh to veil the sight of the Divine from you, but otherwise the afterlife is but a continuation of the earthly life.

My afterlife beliefs are from Spiritualism.

Law of nature. There is no possibility of evading it. Atheists will not get their wish to cease existing, and Muslims will not get their wish to have a porno palace all their own. Christians, though, won’t be very disappointed—beatific bliss of the presence of God will definitely be there.

What spirit showed you your belief in the afterlife? How do you know this spirit is telling you the truth? God Bless

 

[MarkAnthonyCozy]

Genesis315:

Plus, Peter’s remains exist and examination of them has showed he was crucified, which happened during the persecutions in Rome. (I think there might actually be an article about it on this site somewhere).

Most Fundamentalists like to believe that Peter never set foot in Rome. It hurts their theology. But, this is a topic for another thread.

 

[Heathen_Dawn]

MarkAnthonyCozy:

Heathen Dawn; By your posts I see you are sensitive to things of the spirit.

I am indwelt by the spirit of my Goddess and God. Therefore you see that it is an untruth that Christianity is the only way to experience the Divine.

When the one who has been whispering in your ear reveals his true nature, will you turn away from him and turn to the living God?

Turn away from whom and to whom? The Living God, the Creator of the universe, is personified through many Gods and Goddesses. They all are the persons of the True Creator. One God, many persons (Gods and Goddesses). To worship any of the Gods is to worship the Creator.

Call upon the name of Jesus Christ and the deceiver will flee from you!

Nay, but it is you who have been deceived. The Bible has deceived so many people.

Turn away from that which brings death

Death is the natural order of things, instilled from the beginning of creation. Creation was never perfect, and we never fell from any kind of perfect state. No original sin taints us.

You will be filled beyond measure, overflowing with tears of joy beyond all reason.

Thanks, but I am joyful in my personal, living and loving relationship with the Goddess and the God. They have been with me all my life, even when I didn’t know Them, and I won’t turn my back on Them, I won’t return bad for Their abundant good.

 

[Tmaque]

Box Car Racer:

dude, we’ve gotta be open minded. you can’t just say it’s false. explain why you believe it’s false

Did you read the statement I responded to? It’s false because almost no religion condemns non-believers if they are sincere and good. It was an ignorant statement by an ignorant person.

 

[Katholikos]

SPOKENWORD:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ I need help with answering a question. Please explain what you would say to a nonbeliever why they should become a christian? Thanks in advance for your (name removed by moderator)ut. God Bless

Christianity as it is today with its thousands of competing and conflicting Protestant denominations teaching thousands of competing and conflicting doctrines – all based on a different interpretation of the same 66-book cut version of the Bible – is a hard sell. Original, unadulterated Catholic Christianity as it was taught by the Apostles is another matter.

I would say, “Read this book” and give him a copy of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which includes The Case for Christianity, plus a couple of other short books:* Christian Behavior,* and* Beyond Personality, or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity.* Lewis was an atheist from England, and his logic is beautiful to behold. (Except that he should have been a Catholic and not an Anglican – he was very close to the Catholic Church when he died.)

JMJ Jay

 

[MarkAnthonyCozy]

Heathen Dawn:

I am indwelt by the spirit of my Goddess and God. Therefore you see that it is an untruth that Christianity is the only way to experience the Divine.QUOTE]

Please remember what you are reading this day. I have burned insense before your so called gods. The goddess you worship is merely a beautiful image that the one you serve puts in front of himself to hide his ugliness.

He is a creature that fell from grace because he wanted to replace God in heaven. Now he is here trying to do the same.

Please, call on Jesus’ name and see what happens to your goddess and god when the Holy Spirit comes. Their ugliness will be revealed and they will flee in terror. When you do this you must destroy the unholy images that you possess.

Why serve the creatures and elements of nature when you can know and be loved by the Creator Himself? Jesus died for you to save you from the one whom you serve! Would this goddess and god do the same for you?

Please don’t judge us by what you have been taught. The one you serve is called the “great deceiver.”

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short!” Rev 12:10-12

I must go for now Heathen Dawn. I will pray for that day when you will change your name to reflect the new creation that you will become in Jesus Christ. Then together we will be raised up on the last day.

 

[wolpertinger]

Tmaque:

Did you read the statement I responded to? It’s false because almost no religion condemns non-believers if they are sincere and good. It was an ignorant statement by an ignorant person.

Almost no religion? If it’s such a small number, I trust you can name them? By the way, are you prepared to vouch for, say, the doctrine of all the tens of thousands of Christian denominations?

I wish I weren’t so ignorant and knew all that stuff.

 

[wolpertinger]

Catholic Dude:

Here are my questions for the atheists
1)did anyone in your family originally believe in Christianity?
2)What made you not believe if your parents did?
3)And of last of all the classic: Where did we come from?

1. Yes.
2. I never believed, not even as a child.
3. I don’t know and I don’t want to speculate.

Some questions for you. The implicit assumption in many of these threads is that proof of the Christian god’s existence would turn atheists into Christians. Do you concur with that assumption? Why?

 

[Peace-bwu]

Heathen Dawn:

Only loosely, and not the Christian concept of it. I believe in life after death; but even the abodes of bliss are not a place of stagnation, not an eternal holiday camp, but a real life, with progress and struggles. There is no bodily pain, and you don’t have the mask of the flesh to veil the sight of the Divine from you, but otherwise the afterlife is but a continuation of the earthly life.
.

Just wanted to interject here and make sure everyone knows that the Christian heaven is not a place of stagnation. Catholics belive in the concept of purgatory, in which our earthly ties and vices etc. will be purged. We arent’ sure what this will be like, exactly but there are theories. We do have Christ’s promise that no unclean thing will enter into heaven except by fire, that all sin will be purged by fire. Is it literal fire? Not really sure. The Holy Spirit is also called “fire.” so for those in purgatory, there is still transformation before they can be with God face to face. How many of us will not fit into the “unclean” group, very few. How long will it last? God doesn’t go by Earthly time. The Saints in heaven are buisy indeed. Praising the great* I Am* is a full time job, plus they are praying unceasingly for those of us on Earth.

It also will not be an “eternal holiday camp” because we believe that at the end of time, Christ will raise our bodies and we will be given glorified bodies, with gifts Adam and Eve had before the origional sin, the sin of selfishness, greed, the desire to be equal with God. So actually it will be the perfect world without sin, pain or dispair. If the most wonderful pleasant memory you have could be raised even higher and it lasted for eternity, then I guess maybe it would be like a holiday camp.

Pain is a direct result of sin in the world, so a world without sin will be without pain. I know your religion doesn’ t believe in the concept of hell and sin, so that is the main difference when comparing our concepts of the afterlife. I guess you belive that the negative things we call “sin” will still be there in your heaven, it just won’t hurt anyone because there will be no pain? To the Christian, as long as sin exists there will be pain. They go hand in hand.

I just thought I would clarify
Peace, Love and Joy to you!

 

[AnAtheist]

Tmaque:

Did you read the statement I responded to? It’s false because almost no religion condemns non-believers if they are sincere and good. It was an ignorant statement by an ignorant person.

It’s not about religions condemning people, but about GOD condemning people. Pascal’s wager (not brought up by you, but by Mickey) intentionally omits possibilities to make a point. That is, what I am talking about. There is no ad hoc necessity, why, if there is a god and you just believe, you gain everything.
Cromm may rule the universe, and he is not pleased, when you offer the other cheek, if someone hits you.

 

[AnAtheist]

Genesis315:

Probability of no God x payoff(earthly pleasure, a finite utility) + Probability of God x payoff (Hell, inifintely negative)= infinitely negative.

That calculation might be true, if there was a god. I base my atheism not on calculations but on rationalisation and on science.
Believing in an afterlife is just wishful thinking, because we don’t want to die. Besides there might be a god, but no afterlife - another possibility Pascal has omitted.

basically, your choice is inifinte negative or finite positive, only an irrational person would choose an infinte negative.

I’d better choose an infinite negative than 0. If there is one thing in this world, that’s irrational, then it’s religion.

 

[AnAtheist]

Catholic Dude:

Here are my questions for the atheists
1)did anyone in your family originally believe in Christianity?
2)What made you not believe if your parents did?
3)And of last of all the classic: Where did we come from?

1. Yes, one.
2. I think.
3. This is my classic: A god explains nothing, but everything can be explained without one.

We have enough theories, that explain how the universe came into being without divine intervention. Some of them are still flawed, but the overall picture points into the right direction. God is always udes as an explaination for anything, we don’t or didn’t understand (lightings, stars, origin of life). Science has explained one of those things after another, I see no reason, why that should stop anywhere.

 

[Heathen_Dawn]

MarkAnthonyCozy:

The goddess you worship is merely a beautiful image that the one you serve puts in front of himself to hide his ugliness.

He is a creature that fell from grace because he wanted to replace God in heaven. Now he is here trying to do the same.

That’s the fruit of your Biblical brainwashing. The Bible does not tell the truth. I’m not going to accept this on your mere say-so, be it Bible-based or no.

Please, call on Jesus’ name and see what happens to your goddess and god when the Holy Spirit comes. Their ugliness will be revealed and they will flee in terror. When you do this you must destroy the unholy images that you possess.

You realise you’re asking me to be an INFIDEL? As in “unfaithful,” as in a husband that cheats upon his wife? The Goddess and the God have been with me throughout all my life and helped me through all trials and tribulations. To leave Them for Yahweh would be horrendous betrayal on my part. I refuse to this proposition of infidelity.

Why serve the creatures and elements of nature when you can know and be loved by the Creator Himself?

By serving the Gods and the elements of nature, I am known and loved by the Creator Himself.

Jesus died for you to save you from the one whom you serve!

No he didn’t. He was crucified because he annoyed the rabbinical establishment of the day with his dissent. He did not intend to be crucified (hence his last words: eloi, eloi, lema shebaqtani).

Would this goddess and god do the same for you?

Yes, They would.

Please don’t judge us by what you have been taught.

Right back atcha.

The one you serve is called the “great deceiver.”

You blaspheme my holy Gods, calling them demons. But know that the prong can be bent to gouge your own eye. Namely: how do you know you aren’t worshipping a demon? Mayhap all the Bible atrocities are a clue that there is some sinister being behind the Bible?

Then together we will be raised up on the last day.

Never going to happen. All eschatology is a fantasy.

Peace-bwu, thanks for the reply.

 

[wolpertinger]

AnAtheist:

1. This is my classic: A god explains nothing, but everything can be explained without one.

Personally, I would qualify the answer you gave - there are many cases where (short of equivalent speculation) answers are currently unavailable, but god as the default answers raises more questions than are answered. Before god can be a necessary answer, we must have full understanding of the material world, which is likely beyond our grasp. I leave it to the theist to prove that certain questions cannot have a non-theistic answer…

 

[AnAtheist]

wolpertinger:

Personally, I would qualify the answer you gave - there are many cases where (short of equivalent speculation) answers are currently unavailable, but god as the default answers raises more questions than are answered.

Exactly. Aka the God of Gaps.
I am confident, that science will have all the answers some day. One may call that a belief…

 

[Genesis315]

I have a question: why would human beings invent something they couldn’t understand (God) to explain things they couldn’t understand (ie the gaps you speak of)?

 

[Heathen_Dawn]

“Thou shalt not assume God.” Thus much I have learnt from my long stay on Internet Infidels Discussion Boards. I’ve left there out of frustration, but in the meantime, I’ve committed into writing the atheist’s unwritten catechism.

 

[Genesis315]

Also, how can godless science explain things like incorruptible bodies of saints, the Our Lady of Guadalupe tilma, the bilocation of Padre Pio, the Eucharistic miracles, the sun phenomena at Fatima, etc. Plus, science and God are not mutually exclusive. Take creation for example. There’s nothing to say God didn’t create man out of biological material. I find it interesting that the order of life emerging proposed by evolutionary theory is the same as the order in Genesis (ie stuff starting in the water, then, plants on land, things crawling out of the water, birds, mammals, then finally human beings). And Genesis was written far before anyone had any idea about evolution. Was the author just making a lucky guess? The days in genesis have never been definitely defined as days or a longer period.

There was a study about something in mitochondria that can be traced back to a single female (it can only be traced in females I believe) ancestor that we all have. And where there is one female, theere had to be one male. I will say, I’m not sure of the current status of this study, or whether it has been conclusively proven or disproven. Have you heard of it?

Anyway the Church has always been a strong proponent of science. People say this is false because of Galilieo. Galileo had no proof at the time and he already had been proven wrong by the Jesuits about comets. For geocentrism to be false, certain movemments in the stars needed to be obserevd and this was not possible until the mid to late 1800s. The Church just wanted him to prove his theory before making everyone believe it. Galilio turned out to be wrong anyway, as he said the sun is the center of the universe. And the Church never said geocentrism was a heresy.

Religion and science go hand in hand, they are not enemies. God gave us brains for a reason. There’s nothing wrong with understanding creation, as long science itself doesn’t become your God (which would basically mean you worshipped your own mind). Haha, I threw those equations out there because science people like that stuff. Maybe I have them stereotyped, but the science guys I know don’t like philosophizing

 

[wolpertinger]

“Thou shalt not assume God.” Thus much I have learnt from my long stay on Internet Infidels Discussion Boards. I’ve left there out of frustration, but in the meantime, I’ve committed into writing the atheist’s unwritten catechism.

Cute.

I’m not sure about the source of your frustration, though. It’s “thou shalt assume god” on the theist side and “thou shalt not assume god” on the atheist side.