A loving God that instills fear of punishment as His "love"?

You're human with the potential for eternal life. Whether or not you choose to seek eternal life and the God that can give it is your choice. But I believe if someone truly, humbly seeks God, he will find Him. The problem with humans is, we're arrogant and prideful and won't humble ourselves. We lean upon our own understanding and don't seek Him diligently.

 

I choose to take responsibility for my own life and my own actions. I don't feel a need to ask someone else to omnipotently "bless" me from beyond to help me out, nor do I feel that things going wrong in my life are a result of being disciplined by an ethereal being.

 

Well, I look at things in terms of eternity, you don't. That's the difference. Beyond this world, beyond your short life on this earth, you have nothing. For me, I have eternity to live.

 

Because you say so. It must be very comforting to simply declare something and that makes it so.

The truth is, if there is an afterlife, neither you nor I know who will/won't go (my guess is it's all or nothing).

Your sense of self-righteousness about this is amazingly un-God-like

 

Thank You Jonie

Forgive me all , for jumping to the end and making a comment, I generally want to read the whole thread before I contribute anything. That way I am not saying something someone elese has said. Additionally, reading till the end also means that I won't have re opened an argument that had been previously closed.
there are always reasons to read all the way through before saying any thing. conversley, you face losing the point you look to assert, not to memory or having changed your mind, but to the distraction of having a subtle point or position diverting your focus.

That said, none of us know, those of us who beleive on a monothestic God (or many Gods for that matter) or those who use absolute science to guide their lives, the answer to a lot tof the questions we are asking/posing here. I how ever find myself in agreement with much of what JonieMack has said. I don't remember in anything I read where Jesus described Himself as any sort of diety, but deflected the question and said 'I am who/what you think I am'.

here are a few things that one should consider when reading the Bible

1. It was written by men, often a generation or two after the 'event' they write about is supposed to have occured.
2. the same event was witnessed by a number of people and therefore had that same number of perspectives
3. the stories conveyed are conveyed by a people who had a cosiderable less scientific perspective than we do today
4. they were stories and as such were subject to imbelishment
5. stories can be parabolic, real, symbolic, etc
6. the document known as the Bible was interpreted from a bunch of different lanuages, different countries, different traditions into (intially at least) one language (indirectly) by one man who had an agenda (the direction, depth, existance of that agenda can also be debated)

I could go on but I don't wanna, but discussions like these almost always devole into a science vs. God circle. I just find difficulty in the simplicity of arguments from both sides.
Should I beleive that some entity from on high snapped his fingers and here we are or should I beleive that from nothing BOOM we just happened? I don't thiink that we will know until we leave this plain. For those of us that beleive (myself included) we will end up in a place where the steets are paved with gold in a place where gold no longer has any value (who needs money in Heaven?). For those of us who don't it's light switch.

If you don't beleive, um OK, I'm not the one to convince you, or even challenge you.

What ever you beleive, find a way to find comfort and peice of mind while you're still here, by whatever means you deem correct.

There are more than one way to beleive either side.

 

I don't believe in an afterlife. Also, if I claim something to be true, it's not true because I say it's true, it's true because God says it's true. So if you're going to accuse someone of being self-Righteous, accuse God.

 

That's a convenient way of framing things. Until God shows up and tells me anything, I'll happily maintain my current beliefs. Man is fallible, and religion has been used to control the masses throughout history. Even if God had written a book, the chances of it's content/intent being changed over the millenia to keep the rabble in line is near 100%.

Also, Muslims believe in the same God as Christians, yet the Koran disagrees with the Bible in several ways. So who is right? Both books claim to be the word of God, so.....

 

2Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is God-breathed, God inspired and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"

Truth is a person. "I am the way, the Truth, and the life."

2 Timothy 2:12 "...if you deny Him, He will deny you."

John 14:6: Jesus says "....no one comes to the Father except by Me."

 

He did show up, his name is Jesus. Also, God is omnipresent.

You can change the translation but you can't change the truth.

There's only one God, As far as what other people choose to believe, they'll be judged accordingly, just as we all will.

 

Depends on whether or not they believe that Jesus paid for their sins on the Cross. If they do, they're going to Heaven, if not, they're going to hell.

 

that was Timothy's opinion
Timothy or his scribes wrote Timothy's opinon of what God said/conveyed to

see item #6
could the original text ahve been something along the line of (concidering the many translations)
the way I am trying to show you is the way
the way I am trying to show you is the Truth (as opposed to the many other kids named Jesus, because after all having a prophecy saying some kid named Jesus would be the Christ (a title by the way and not a name) a lot of mothers named their kid Jesus and those kids have mininstries)
My life is the one you should model your's after (btw, I though He said Light as in shining the way, could be wrong, don't feel like digging for the Book now)

I won't dig at the Jewish thing except to say that Jesus led a Jewish life, my position is that God laid out the laws/rules/whatever and we men interperted them to our convience and Jesus came down originally to show us how to live within those rules and what we were doing wrong

Btw I also separate the religious and ethnic Jew setting aside who the ethnic Jew was.

 

You mean like picking and choosing like you do?
--- merged: Nov 29, 2011 5:27 AM ---

Ah so you do have the spirit in you?
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Have you?
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Sounds to me like all of a sudden you are DENYING Him in the face of adversity Eddie.

 

I'm gonna get out of this thread for a time cuz i got stuff but before i do I would like Eddie to cosider this

Similar to the stringent laws (as they are portrayed) in Islam, Judasim held as truth that if it is written (by God or his appointed agents) so shall it be. That on it's own is true, but he didn't remove from us or those men and women before us our capacity to think rationally.

Before Jesus, if on the Sabbath, your one and only beast were to bust out of his gate, run down the road, trip over something in the road and end up in a ditch, you were not to fetch him because to fetch him would constitute work and you are not to work on the Sabbath.
Which for me means that, should some random act occur that could jepordize the condition of your family and liveleyhood you couldn't fix it no matter how easy it would be until a certain hour, is silly. Jesus said go get your beast, don't be stupid.

before Jesus, if someone for whatever reason fell to the lower classes of people who were beneath contempt weren't worthy of your time. Jesus said, help them out and show them that this life is better than the one they are living

As for the dying on the cross for our sins.
I got a real problem with this as it's taught in our Churches.
Churches say that Dude died for us so all we gotta do is say "sorry" and we get into Heaven.
No, Jesus questioned authority (church and state), challenging both saying, simply this is not how I beleive, as a result they killed him so I veiw it as dying demonstrating the conviction He had in living a good life to provide us an example of how we should live.

 

I don't think so. I think he handles major affairs but as for knowing EVERYTHING and being EVERYWHERE Takes faith which, up until you DENIED Him, I thought you could have had. But now I do not believe you do Eddie.

Ah you mean like you have done in some areas here, where on one hand you say you HAVE to believe in HIM, then you state "I never said I was a Christian" where you are denying Him. You can't have it both ways Eddie, either you are or you aren't. IF you are, then you know you can never deny Him and will proudly proclaim your faith. The Book of Revelations (a book I personally have issue with but many Christians use it) is all about the trial and tribulations and having faith in the times of adversity thus refusing to take the mark.

So which is it Mr. Religion? Do you proclaim to have faith or do you continue to say "I never said I was a Christian?"

At least I am honest and say, I follow both Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity as a religion and way of life, Buddhism as a philosophy and a way of life that I aspire to attain. BOTH lead to inner peace. I NEVER have denied being a follower of Christ, I do believe though that Christ wanted us to explore and learn of other religions and philosophies. Hence the Prodigal son story.

So again, you say this but you refuse to state you are a Christian... how f'n hypocritical.