What would YOU want to hear at church?
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I was on a native reserve a while back, to celebrate their first year of sobriety as a group (the entire reserve). I was wondering around, getting a feel for the place when I saw a Catholic church. Having not been in one for many decades, I decided to poke my nose in to see what kind of feelings would come up. It was as cold as a tomb in there, it had the ambiance of a tomb, and I got the distinct impression of death being present. I made a hasty retreat. As I wondered back to the ceremonial hall, I pondered the sensation I was feeling. For me it was a confirmation that churches were not places I would find spiritually uplifting. (That is a personal feeling and not one I project on anyone else).
Back in the hall, I was greeted warmly by a large group of people (I was the only one of European ancestry there). I was there at the invitation of an old Cree spiritual elder who had helped these people get sober using traditional teachings and ceremony. The highlight of the weekend was a movie these people made where they had to portray the process they went through to get sober, which one large native fellow said was one on the hardest thing he ever had to do (he had to portray himself drunk beating up his father and mother). The movie was deemed an essential part of the healing process. I sat with these people as they quietly shed copious amounts of tears throughout the movie.
Just another small example of how spirit manifests through the silence of human feelings.
(this is from Augustine, Thomas Boston, etc. and reflects the Biblical explanation of human nature: )
Pre-Fall Man: Able to sin; Able to not sin
Post-Fall Man: Able to sin; Unable to not sin
Reborn Man: Able to sin; Able to not sin
Glorified Man: Unable to sin; Able to not sin
That's nice and neat, though redundant in two of the categories (unable to not sin certainly implies able to sin, for instance, in fact it implies compulsion to sin) but I know of no reason to think any of it's true. As Christopher Hitchens put it, it may not be said that there is no god, but it may be said that there's no reason to think there is. I think it's an evil tale made up to frighten and control people.
You have evidence that I threw something out a window? Or is this just you claiming I have.
Ah, so you have your own brand of "logic". Well, I knew that.
What are you gibbering about? It's an expression and the context I was using it in says that there's more than one way to become a good person. Yeshua is not the only way.
I guess you don't quite comprehend the idea of timelines. According to the Bible, Yeshua WAS all about love and compassion. This "Great Tribulation" has not happened yet. To put it more simply, "was" is different than "is to be".
So? The first 4 commandments are all about YHVH and its ego.
So?
Here we go with the timeline thing again. YHVH massacred over 10 million people mentioned in the Bible in the past. So the Bible says there will be some 108 billion people on this "New Earth" in the future.
Either way, there's just as much evidence for all these "to bes" as there is for you growing a 9th nose.
Nope. If I take it to be BS, I take it to be BS.
Lots of "ifs". If the Bible is just a big concoction of imaginative minds, your arithmetic is a bit moot.
Makes me think someone was on drugs.
What fact was this again? How much evidence is there to back up this "fact"?
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Sorry, I don't have a lot of time tonight. But I'm not seeing much point in continuing this discussion. It's not edifying anybody, so far as I know.
Of course you don't see much point. You have very little support for YOUR point of view, and obviously from this last responce, you NEED to have others support you.
I don't come here looking for support. My last comment refers to my suspicion that this is not a good use of time. Time is a gift from God, you know that.
In that case we are not made perfect in this world, that is a standard for the new earth where staying away fromk evil is because the Law is written on our heart rather than held in our hearing. It takes the ones alive for the 1,000 years to make the 'transition' as to how they appear to God when they first see His face.
Heb:12:23:
To the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven,
and to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
This earth was always mean to expire so it's judgment could 'pass', it was going to fail it is just as well that it did on the first generation.
Nice weasel out. Run along now. Don't say I didn't warn you this would happen. Too many people on here have functioning BS barometers.
Sniff, Sniff! Ah, the master of BS has spoken again. You know, if you would take your nose out of that book once in a while, you might smell the roses. There is more to life than reading antiquated texts that mean nothing to anybody but an ancient goat herder in the desert. I would love to be a fly on the wall when your god tells you you squandered the life he gave you on useless endeavors such as these.
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I'll come back to the longer part that I skilled for this one.
If God was perfect He would make a trial run before setting things in motion where a break would have different consequences had a trial run not been 'part of the plan all along'
Isa:66:22:
For as the new heavens and the new earth,
which I will make,
shall remain before me,
saith the LORD,
so shall your seed and your name remain.
LOL, well, of course, our earth, our solar system, our galaxy even the universe will eventually die. Whether it comes naturally by the sun going nova and spewing out the start of a new system elsewhere or whether it will continue for many eons as a satellite of a dark star, is the question. It may (earth) get struck by a large bit of space debris pounding earth pieces, or our sun simply collapses in on itself, who knows.
Does it matter if earth gets struck by a large enough hunk of debris, and hammered into small bits, or if the sun either goes nova and becomes a dark star? In the either scenario, I imagine then end will be come quickly. I don't imagine either scenario is in the very near future.
Ah so you do believe there is a witch of the west.......I believe the witch of the east had a house fall on her.
Going off track a little, can anyone tell me where and when the first copy of the Bible surfaced?
Part of Law, when Law is give a 'day of judgment' and a 'period of punishment is determined' and a 'place of punishment' is created, for Angels the Laws is the one in Re:21 and the time of their Judgment is just before the Great white Throne for the men that may/may not be in hell. Once any fallen angels are in the lake the men under punishment are released as sinless men, just in time to enter the new earth as it begins to unfold.
God completed creation, that required a day off. The same men that have lived and died are alive in the new earth so all of mankind is 'saved'. 1/3 of the fallen angels end up in the fiery lake so perhaps it was meant not to be empty. Hell is the worst men face and it is a punishment that comes with a predetermined release date.
Equal enough that a married man and woman are called one flesh and equal enough that a man will leave his mother and father for a wife. That seems to be quite equal.
2Tm:3:16:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof,
for correction,
for instruction in righteousness:
I thought the RCC did that in about 323AD, it should have been the very same original texts that the 1611KJV was translated from. By 1611 the RCC had way more texts than just the Holy Bible so they tried to improve on perfection and they broke it, so to speak.
Worrying? I thought it was funny.
And to rational people, it never will.
This New Earth will happen when? As I mentioned already, the amount of people that have been been born so far is estimated to be about 108 billion. Other species have been dying off simply to make room for the current 7 billion. Fresh water is also dwindling faster than it is being replenished.
But maybe we'll all be ghosts and not need space or water or food. And in about 1.5 billion more years when we've all gone nuts from boredom, the planet will have lost all the water and by about another 3.5 billion years after that, the red giant sun will have cooked the planet to a crisp.
I can think of better ways to spend eternity even if it actually is possible to get past a corporeal death. Oh, hey, maybe we could all be Qs and set about the universe annoying the hell out of Klingons, Borg, Wookies, Vulcans, and Siths. It sounds just as plausible as anything from the Bible.