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T
But they didn't come before Jesus. The Lord that walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve,
that was Him. All things were created by Him. Before Jesus? He is the Lord and nothing existed
before Him. Religions are cheap imitations. Jesus speaking:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
He created all things and gave the words and prophecy concerning the time when He would step into
the world He created to save His own. It didn't start when Jesus was born. It started when God said, "Let there
be....."
that was Him. All things were created by Him. Before Jesus? He is the Lord and nothing existed
before Him. Religions are cheap imitations. Jesus speaking:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
He created all things and gave the words and prophecy concerning the time when He would step into
the world He created to save His own. It didn't start when Jesus was born. It started when God said, "Let there
be....."
C
Having had a day to cool down, and get off my soap box, I now wish to extend my apology to any of you, who may have taken offence to the last message that I posted on this sight. I especially need to say, I am very sorry that Batman007 was offended by my comments. I’m sure she is under a great deal of conviction, and my calling her a little girl does not serve to bring her to the Lord. For that, and comparing her to my own daughter, I am truly sorry. Please know my heart was in the right place, but not my head. I was too busy defending the faith to consider Batman007, like many young people today, need nurturing, and not the tough love that I have to offer. At any rate, I am asking all to forgive my weak ability to do Gods work, and know that what I said in that message, was said as a father would to his own child.
[h=1]May God the Father and our Lord Jesus bless you all[/h]
[h=1]May God the Father and our Lord Jesus bless you all[/h]
T
People have always needed nurturing, not just tough love. And calling someone a little girl isn't tough love, it's insulting them and treating them as highly inferior. Yes, you may disagree with her stance but you need to speak God's Truth with love. I'm glad you had a change of heart about your attitude though.
B
I appreciate you saying that, and I'm sorry if I upset you.
I understand that we have different views, and honestly I love that we do because that's democracy. I love that two people who view the world so differently can coexist. I understand that many people here are going to think less of me because my beliefs are so controversial to people who don't often speak to atheists. I really don't mean to be upsetting.
I wish you luck in your life and with your own daughter. I don't judge you for that post. I'm sure you're an awesome person
I understand that we have different views, and honestly I love that we do because that's democracy. I love that two people who view the world so differently can coexist. I understand that many people here are going to think less of me because my beliefs are so controversial to people who don't often speak to atheists. I really don't mean to be upsetting.
I wish you luck in your life and with your own daughter. I don't judge you for that post. I'm sure you're an awesome person
It's worth noting that quite a few Christian points of view allow non-Christians into heaven.
Universalism is worth noting first as it's essentially always been around. In that view because of 2nd Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." it is certain all will be saved in the end. The Lord is not willing any should perish, so in the end no one can, and obeying in the here and now is just for rewards in Heaven.
C.S. Lewis's theology is a far from that, but makes a point to allow Islamics and those of other religions into heaven if they are in their heart seeking the True God. The exact allegory is that if one is truely seeking the True God and does things in a false god's name it will be done as if it where to the True God, because no good thing can be done in evils name. Similarly those who do evil in the Name of Christ count as if they are doing it in a demons name, as no evil thing can be done in the name of good. This is a rather popular point of view.
The Theology of Michel de Sevartas (the guy Calvin had burned at the steak) would say that anyone who dies before the age of accountability is saved, no matter who they are or where they're from. This is because God does not punish the son for the sins of the father, and they are thus innocent until they are grown and can sin for themselves. The age of accountability being twenty, as demonstrated by Exodus 30:14. At that time those under 20 where innocent of the sins of the older generation and could still enter the promised land.
While I may disagree with full universalism, given the question I believe its right to point out that there are quite a few Christian groups that do allow for non-Christians to be saved. They are the minority, but they're no small minority.
C
I appreciate you saying that, and I'm sorry if I upset you.
I understand that we have different views, and honestly I love that we do because that's democracy. I love that two people who view the world so differently can coexist. I understand that many people here are going to think less of me because my beliefs are so controversial to people who don't often speak to atheists. I really don't mean to be upsetting.
I wish you luck in your life and with your own daughter. I don't judge you for that post. I'm sure you're an awesome person
I understand that we have different views, and honestly I love that we do because that's democracy. I love that two people who view the world so differently can coexist. I understand that many people here are going to think less of me because my beliefs are so controversial to people who don't often speak to atheists. I really don't mean to be upsetting.
I wish you luck in your life and with your own daughter. I don't judge you for that post. I'm sure you're an awesome person
You are in my prayers
T
The Theology of Michel de Sevartas (the guy Calvin had burned at the steak)
Sounds tasty.
But seriously, that's a strange belief, simply because all people are born with a sinful nature and we clearly know the difference between good and evil. I don't believe there's an age of accountability but I believe that God, in his mercy, works something out. Universalism can go down the toilet. Jesus wouldn't have warned of the nature of hell so many times in his ministry if it weren't of eternal consequence. As for C.S. Lewis, that scene always stumped me as a kid and teen but I've read Lewis' non-fiction and they don't support a worldview based in Universalism.
Sounds tasty.
But seriously, that's a strange belief, simply because all people are born with a sinful nature and we clearly know the difference between good and evil. I don't believe there's an age of accountability but I believe that God, in his mercy, works something out. Universalism can go down the toilet. Jesus wouldn't have warned of the nature of hell so many times in his ministry if it weren't of eternal consequence. As for C.S. Lewis, that scene always stumped me as a kid and teen but I've read Lewis' non-fiction and they don't support a worldview based in Universalism.
B
Of course I won't judge all Christians by you. I try not to judge any group of people, especially on the words or actions of an individual. By the way, you're one of the only people on this site who has been nice to me (although granted, not initially). You're one of the "truest" Christians I've seen here. Everyone gets angry. It takes true strength to admit it.
Trust me, I question everything. Everything. At least I try to. I don't get anything from one source. I am constantly questioning my values and beliefs and those of people around me. Nothing I've mentioned on this site I learned from college (I just started community college this semester and I've only been to one of my classes thus far, which was about the Holocaust), and my school isn't liberal.
I don't surround myself with people who would persecute me for my beliefs. That's a horrible thing. I distance myself from people who are so ready to judge an entire person based on different or possibly controversial beliefs and values.
Trust me, I question everything. Everything. At least I try to. I don't get anything from one source. I am constantly questioning my values and beliefs and those of people around me. Nothing I've mentioned on this site I learned from college (I just started community college this semester and I've only been to one of my classes thus far, which was about the Holocaust), and my school isn't liberal.
I don't surround myself with people who would persecute me for my beliefs. That's a horrible thing. I distance myself from people who are so ready to judge an entire person based on different or possibly controversial beliefs and values.
The God of the Holy Bible seeks worship from true worshipers as He has revealed Himself in scripture, and that is Triune.
He who has the Son has eternal life.
He who does not have the Son, does not have eternal life.
Thus, Islam, Jews and other unitarians who deny the Son simply do not have eternal life....but eternal death.
This really is as simple as it gets...
It doesn't really matter whether you find Sevartes's ideas strange or not. It exists and hangs around to this day in quite a number of churches. It mostly exists to deal with the 'what happens to children who die' or 'what happens to aborted babies' questions, and it exists alongside I told you what his age of accountability was based on, and its fairly compelling.
Lewis's stance was that you cannot know who will be saved, check The Great Divorce. He was open to the possibility of people being saved though Christ who did not actually know anything about him. That is illustrated in The Last Battle, as mentioned above. I also seem to remember one of his other works, dealing with how OT believers where saved without knowing the exact identity of Christ, though I don't recall exactly where nor am I certain of that recollection. And as I said above, his stance is far from Universalism.
Regardless, these are stances that exist, and are worth pointing out in a thread like this.
Lewis's stance was that you cannot know who will be saved, check The Great Divorce. He was open to the possibility of people being saved though Christ who did not actually know anything about him. That is illustrated in The Last Battle, as mentioned above. I also seem to remember one of his other works, dealing with how OT believers where saved without knowing the exact identity of Christ, though I don't recall exactly where nor am I certain of that recollection. And as I said above, his stance is far from Universalism.
Regardless, these are stances that exist, and are worth pointing out in a thread like this.
You're one of those people that doesn't understand that there are different forms of Christianity than those presented in mainstream modern North America arn't you?
Like it or lump it unversalist eschatology has existed since the early church, and has never gone away even though it has fallen out of favour. They would say that The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Given He is God his will will happen, and that's really as simple as it gets.
Of course it's not actually as simple as either point of view, but it can be made simple by wilfully ignoring those that disagree, as you have so neatly done.
Like it or lump it unversalist eschatology has existed since the early church, and has never gone away even though it has fallen out of favour. They would say that The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Given He is God his will will happen, and that's really as simple as it gets.
Of course it's not actually as simple as either point of view, but it can be made simple by wilfully ignoring those that disagree, as you have so neatly done.
It's true. I do believe a lot of people overstate his position to try to make him out to be universalist, though as you said he clearly isn't.
I think it is fair to say that he believe one could not know the eternal future of any other person, and he was open to the possibility of people who did not know who Christ was being saved.
I think it is fair to say that he believe one could not know the eternal future of any other person, and he was open to the possibility of people who did not know who Christ was being saved.
C
So, you're a freshman? Oops, I mean freshperson.
I just started back in school myself. I started last summer at NSU. I've been away from school for 30 years. They started me out as a senior. I'm majoring in Business Technology. The VA is paying for it. I'm making all A's so far. Because of this flesh eating bacterial infection, I must take all classes on line. Because of my lack of computer skills, and because I'm a hunt and pecker, I'm a little slow. Still, school seems a lot easier than it was 30 years ago. I made all A's way back when, but it seemed a lot harder. Perhaps it's true what they say; "with age comes wisdom".
So, you say you are an atheist? Sorry, but I don't believe in atheist.
I've often wondered; doesn't it require a lot of faith to be an atheist? I mean, as an atheist I assume that you are a Darwinist. And if so, does it not require a great deal of faith, to believe that everything just randomly happened, for no particular reason. Using basic math, it's statistically quite unlikely that, even single cell organisms, as complex as they are, could have been the product of evolution.
At any rate, I'm glad you have no hard feelings toward me, for the way I was haranguing. I have to admit, I am a zealot. I consider it a good thing to be zealous for God. This Christian thing is still new to me. I was saved only eight years ago. So, I'm still learning. It was after 911 that I became interested in geopolitics. I began reading books about Islam, to learn more about the enemy. The more I learned about Muslims, their religion, and how much they hated Christians and Jews, compelled me to dig deeper into Christianity and Judaism. Though this process, I realized that all prophecies, from the Old and New Testament, are correct. And, if I go back to the math board, and do the statistics, it can't be random chance. Then, I decided to to accept Jesus as my Lord. Shortly after He saved me, I had a vision. I surrendered to the ministry and wasordained a year ago last month.
So, tell me about yourself.
God bless you in every way
I just started back in school myself. I started last summer at NSU. I've been away from school for 30 years. They started me out as a senior. I'm majoring in Business Technology. The VA is paying for it. I'm making all A's so far. Because of this flesh eating bacterial infection, I must take all classes on line. Because of my lack of computer skills, and because I'm a hunt and pecker, I'm a little slow. Still, school seems a lot easier than it was 30 years ago. I made all A's way back when, but it seemed a lot harder. Perhaps it's true what they say; "with age comes wisdom".
So, you say you are an atheist? Sorry, but I don't believe in atheist.
I've often wondered; doesn't it require a lot of faith to be an atheist? I mean, as an atheist I assume that you are a Darwinist. And if so, does it not require a great deal of faith, to believe that everything just randomly happened, for no particular reason. Using basic math, it's statistically quite unlikely that, even single cell organisms, as complex as they are, could have been the product of evolution.
At any rate, I'm glad you have no hard feelings toward me, for the way I was haranguing. I have to admit, I am a zealot. I consider it a good thing to be zealous for God. This Christian thing is still new to me. I was saved only eight years ago. So, I'm still learning. It was after 911 that I became interested in geopolitics. I began reading books about Islam, to learn more about the enemy. The more I learned about Muslims, their religion, and how much they hated Christians and Jews, compelled me to dig deeper into Christianity and Judaism. Though this process, I realized that all prophecies, from the Old and New Testament, are correct. And, if I go back to the math board, and do the statistics, it can't be random chance. Then, I decided to to accept Jesus as my Lord. Shortly after He saved me, I had a vision. I surrendered to the ministry and wasordained a year ago last month.
So, tell me about yourself.
God bless you in every way
B
So, you're a freshman? Oops, I mean freshperson.
I just started back in school myself. I started last summer at NSU. I've been away from school for 30 years. They started me out as a senior. I'm majoring in Business Technology. The VA is paying for it. I'm making all A's so far. Because of this flesh eating bacterial infection, I must take all classes on line. Because of my lack of computer skills, and because I'm a hunt and pecker, I'm a little slow. Still, school seems a lot easier than it was 30 years ago. I made all A's way back when, but it seemed a lot harder. Perhaps it's true what they say; "with age comes wisdom".
So, you say you are an atheist? Sorry, but I don't believe in atheist.
I've often wondered; doesn't it require a lot of faith to be an atheist? I mean, as an atheist I assume that you are a Darwinist. And if so, does it not require a great deal of faith, to believe that everything just randomly happened, for no particular reason. Using basic math, it's statistically quite unlikely that, even single cell organisms, as complex as they are, could have been the product of evolution.
At any rate, I'm glad you have no hard feelings toward me, for the way I was haranguing. I have to admit, I am a zealot. I consider it a good thing to be zealous for God. This Christian thing is still new to me. I was saved only eight years ago. So, I'm still learning. It was after 911 that I became interested in geopolitics. I began reading books about Islam, to learn more about the enemy. The more I learned about Muslims, their religion, and how much they hated Christians and Jews, compelled me to dig deeper into Christianity and Judaism. Though this process, I realized that all prophecies, from the Old and New Testament, are correct. And, if I go back to the math board, and do the statistics, it can't be random chance. Then, I decided to to accept Jesus as my Lord. Shortly after He saved me, I had a vision. I surrendered to the ministry and wasordained a year ago last month.
So, tell me about yourself.
God bless you in every way
I just started back in school myself. I started last summer at NSU. I've been away from school for 30 years. They started me out as a senior. I'm majoring in Business Technology. The VA is paying for it. I'm making all A's so far. Because of this flesh eating bacterial infection, I must take all classes on line. Because of my lack of computer skills, and because I'm a hunt and pecker, I'm a little slow. Still, school seems a lot easier than it was 30 years ago. I made all A's way back when, but it seemed a lot harder. Perhaps it's true what they say; "with age comes wisdom".
So, you say you are an atheist? Sorry, but I don't believe in atheist.
I've often wondered; doesn't it require a lot of faith to be an atheist? I mean, as an atheist I assume that you are a Darwinist. And if so, does it not require a great deal of faith, to believe that everything just randomly happened, for no particular reason. Using basic math, it's statistically quite unlikely that, even single cell organisms, as complex as they are, could have been the product of evolution.
At any rate, I'm glad you have no hard feelings toward me, for the way I was haranguing. I have to admit, I am a zealot. I consider it a good thing to be zealous for God. This Christian thing is still new to me. I was saved only eight years ago. So, I'm still learning. It was after 911 that I became interested in geopolitics. I began reading books about Islam, to learn more about the enemy. The more I learned about Muslims, their religion, and how much they hated Christians and Jews, compelled me to dig deeper into Christianity and Judaism. Though this process, I realized that all prophecies, from the Old and New Testament, are correct. And, if I go back to the math board, and do the statistics, it can't be random chance. Then, I decided to to accept Jesus as my Lord. Shortly after He saved me, I had a vision. I surrendered to the ministry and wasordained a year ago last month.
So, tell me about yourself.
God bless you in every way
I'm not a freshman (freshperson
) because I'm not taking general ed classes, I'm only taking a class on the Nazi Era and a class on World Religions (which actually starts today!). I had a tough time at the end of my senior year of high school so I decided to take a semester to work and save up for a car and school. It's good to be back at school though! I love learning.Haha I've heard people say they don't believe in atheists before. Can I ask why?
First off, evolution has nothing to do with why I'm an atheist. I'm an atheist because I don't believe that there is a god that created the universe. I suppose I'm also agnostic in the sense that I think it's impossible to know for certainty whether or not there is a god. Perhaps there is one! But if there is I don't think it would be a Christian god, or a Muslim god, or any god of any religion we have. I suppose if there is a god I'd see it from a deist perspective: god created everything, then god left us alone.
I define myself as an atheist rather than an agnostic or deist, because at present time I do not believe in a god. Again, there could be one, but I don't think there is.
I do think evolution is the most probable explanation for how life came to be on earth. I'm not saying I believe in it 100% because I think it's impossible to know for sure, at least now. Scientists are working on recreating life from nothing, but they're not quite there yet. So no, I wouldn't call myself a "Darwinist" (not even entirely sure what that means). I don't claim to know how life got started. However, looking at the evidence I think that evolution is the best answer we have as of yet.
And sure, I think single celled organisms can create what we have today, given enough time. We're talking about billions of years, here. It didn't happen overnight. However, I'm not a scientist. I don't claim to know everything about evolution. I'm always looking to learn more, though.
Don't get me wrong, I like your passion! I disagree with it, but I like it
I think it's important to believe in things that bring meaning to your life!I have to say it bothers me that you call Islam the "enemy". I've met many wonderful Muslims. Sure there are some awful ones out there, but there are some awful Christians, too. Islam calls the US it's enemy, let's be better than them.
That's cool, thanks for sharing!