God is not Mysterious

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JustinFromTwinCities

Guest
#161
#161
This is not the kind of love that the flesh is capable of in my opinion. Hard enough towards those who love you, but towards those who would be considered your "enemies"?

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.


4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.


13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 
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Sophia

Guest
#163
#163
stabbo said:
Like I said, everything a believer can do in love a non believer can also do.
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Works are funny like that. Looks can be deceiving.
Motivation of the heart is what separates the true from the false. A person can claim good motivation for whatever deeds they do,
but being unable to claim what you've done as by your own doing is what counts.

So to your statement, the response is "no".
An unbeliever can simulate good works, but can never achieve anything God values as "good". Only works of the Spirit are free from fleshly motive.
 
S

Sophia

Guest
#164
#164
On that idea of "love",
can an unbeliever have love for their enemies?
They can have pity, and can have fear, and can have respect,
and can do "kind" things for their enemies... but the motive is not love. It is usually little more than "trying to rise above them through ethics", or perhaps a survival mechanism of submission.... not actual love.

Gandhi clearly stated that his motives for peaceful resistance were because creating martyrdom is a powerful tool of change... and also that mankind needs villains to fight, and that such selfless (his word, because I do not agree that his actions were selfless) actions give a clear distinction between abuse and justice.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for publicizing their fasting.... exactly the tool used by Gandhi: publicized fasting.
 
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stabbo

Banned
#165
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#165
JustinFromTwinCities said:
This is not the kind of love that the flesh is capable of in my opinion. Hard enough towards those who love you, but towards those who would be considered your "enemies"?

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.


4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.


13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Click to expand...

Yes non believers can do all that and much more.
 
S

stabbo

Banned
#167
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#167
Sophia said:
On that idea of "love",
can an unbeliever have love for their enemies?
They can have pity, and can have fear, and can have respect,
and can do "kind" things for their enemies... but the motive is not love. It is usually little more than "trying to rise above them through ethics", or perhaps a survival mechanism of submission.... not actual love.

Gandhi clearly stated that his motives for peaceful resistance were because creating martyrdom is a powerful tool of change... and also that mankind needs villains to fight, and that such selfless (his word, because I do not agree that his actions were selfless) actions give a clear distinction between abuse and justice.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for publicizing their fasting.... exactly the tool used by Gandhi: publicized fasting.
Click to expand...
No Sophia, no unbeliever has been able to forgive their enemies ever.
 
S

Sophia

Guest
#168
#168
stabbo said:
No Sophia, no unbeliever has been able to forgive their enemies ever.
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Can you prove that? Give an example at least.
When was such "forgiveness" not to the benefit of the unbelieving forgiver? Without an outside motivation, it is always selfish, usually with the attitude of proving one's self right by "rising above"(pride), or out of the desire to remove future conflict(fear).

Selfish pride or selfish fear. Not actual love.
 
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stabbo

Banned
#171
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#171
Sophia said:
Can you prove that? Give an example at least.
When was such "forgiveness" not to the benefit of the unbelieving forgiver? Without an outside motivation, it is always selfish, usually with the attitude of proving one's self right by "rising above"(pride), or out of the desire to remove future conflict(fear).

Selfish pride or selfish fear. Not actual love.
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working backwards I can simply prove it by self examination, I know I have forgiven and loved my enemies many times without faith in God first. Now either im the exception or we humans all have the ability to forgive our enemies, if we want to.
 
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Sophia

Guest
#173
#173
stabbo said:
working backwards I can simply prove it by self examination, I know I have forgiven and loved my enemies many times without faith in God first. Now either im the exception or we humans all have the ability to forgive our enemies, if we want to.
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Then testify. Was it during oppression, or years later, in an attempt to have it no longer affect you?
 
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stabbo

Banned
#175
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#175
Sophia said:
Then testify. Was it during oppression, or years later, in an attempt to have it no longer affect you?
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All the above and more, in fact my next door neighbours are oppressing me now and i've turned the cheek for almost two years.
 
S

Sophia

Guest
#177
#177
stabbo said:
All the above and more, in fact my next door neighbours are oppressing me now and i've turned the cheek for almost two years.
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I don't need the answer to this; you do.
Can you honestly say to yourself "I am not doing this simply to to stop future confrontation"
or "I am not doing this to prove to them that I am above their tactics"
or "I am not doing this because I don't have the confidence to confront them about it".

Being "non-confrontational" is not the same as forgiveness, and not anything to do with love.
 
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stabbo

Banned
#178
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#178
Sophia said:
I don't need the answer to this; you do.
Can you honestly say to yourself "I am not doing this simply to to stop future confrontation"
or "I am not doing this to prove to them that I am above their tactics"
or "I am not doing this because I don't have the confidence to confront them about it".

Being "non-confrontational" is not the same as forgiveness, and not anything to do with love.
Click to expand...
I am still freinds with them even though they continue to make me suffer, I realise I am not above their behaviour thats why I have compassion, and I have confronted them but so far they havent learned enough to change.
 
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stabbo

Banned
#179
Jan 20, 2015
456
0
0
#179
stabbo said:
I am still freinds with them even though they continue to make me suffer, I realise I am not above their behaviour thats why I have compassion, and I have confronted them but so far they havent learned enough to change.
Click to expand...
Oh, and I forgot to mention. They are professing christians.
 
Hizikyah

Hizikyah

Senior Member
#180
Aug 25, 2013
11,634
372
0
#180
stabbo said:
Because it makes me happy.
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stabbo?

lol

stab a daba do....

life is a strange thing?

how did we get here?

did something create us?

or is it just a silly astronomical accident?
 
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