I received this comment in response to my post Why I quit Christianity. Tony brought up a number of important questions so I thought it best to repeat our exchange here where more folks can read it:
Hi Richard,
I must say I enjoyed your conversations. I admire your works on the bible wheel, and I am quite surprised by your turn from christianity. I ordered your book a few years back and came back to order a couple more for a couple of my friends that were interested in the study. I was shocked to see the statement why I turned from christianity. You said, I am set free from christianity… May I ask how were you set free from freedom? You were once a bond servant set free from the bonds of sin, and now you want go back into bondage. It reminds me of the Galations who were converting back to the law. You noted a scripture: Deuteronomy 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: 17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: Did God not destroy the Earth with a flood? Does that make Him evil? Is He not the judge? Doesn’t He have the right to judge? Do we deserve death, and if not why did Jesus go to the cross? Why did God come down from His throne to die for you? Even the angels ask God, why do you concern yourself with us humans. How can we being the clay even consider judging the potters intensions or motives? Does He not see whats in your heart before you even see yourself? Didn’t the Lord tell Peter He would deny Him 3x even though Peter was ephatic he would die for the Lord? Surely a person with your intellect has read these scriptures over and over, yet now you recant? What has occurred in your life to release you from the ultimate Love?
You haven’t seen evidence prayers being answered? You have to have kidding me? I see prayers answered daily! What have you been doing that you haven’t seen prayer answered? Have you submitted your self completely? Do you put others first? Where is your victory?
You talked about the false prophets and people who have claimed to be of our Father, but live otherwise…. didn’t Jesus state it would be this way? Didn’t He say we are known by our fruits? Shouldn’t we keep our eyes focussed on our Father, and not on others? I Know I am no match for a debate with you, but consider fasting and praying to your Father for an understanding, instead of seeking other spiritual mediums. I agree with your statements about many Christians who fail to discern false people who claim they know the end of the world, but did you really believe Harold? I for one am not looking for the end of the world, but the return of our Lord. Isn’t that our hope? Shouldn’t we be using our time wisely being about the Fathers business? Finally, I am not here to convince you of anything, but maybe I can get you to use the talent our Father has given you to look take another gander and what your rejecting? My dad wasn’t an educated man, but when I was going through college, I would seek his advice because he would direct me to find my own answers. I pray you will seek Him who set you free and ask for Him to reveal His spirit in you to find the answers your seeking. The answers are right inside you, but you are failing to see them. Pray the Father opens the door to your heart to see Him as truth! God bless you brother and I will be praying for you!
Tony
Here is my answer:
Hi Tony,
I really appreciate your heartfelt comments, and I understand where you are coming from. But there are a lot of “assumptions” in your comments that I don’t think are valid. So I’ll walk through them one at a time:
Tony: May I ask how were you set free from freedom?
Are Christians really any more “free” than others? I don’t think so. The concept that Christians have been “made free from sin” is not really true. All honest Christians must admit that they often sin. This is one of the biggest problems I had with Christianity. Folks say words that have no real meaning.
When I said I was “free from Christianity” I was talking about real tangible freedom. I was not talking about some abstract freedom like “freedom from sin” that has no reality. I was talking about freedom to think freely and act in accordance with my conscience which was often at odds with Christian doctrines and things taught in the Bible like the doctrine of hell (as mentioned in my post).
Tony: Did God not destroy the Earth with a flood? Does that make Him evil?
Not necessarily. But that was not my point. My point was that God’s command to kill all the men, women, and children in the promised land was evil. If he really wanted them dead he should have done it himself. Why did he think it would be good to turn “his people” into merciless brutalized baby-killers? And that’s not the only immoral teaching in the Bible attributed to God. This is a real problem that has no solution as far as I can tell.
Tony: How can we being the clay even consider judging the potters intensions or motives?
We have no choice! How do you know that the Bible is true? Is that not a “judgment” that you have made? And when you accepted the concept of the Trinity – is that not a judgment that you made about the nature of God? And on it goes, there is no way we can avoid making such judgments unless we choose to be mindless robots. And besides, why did God give us a brain if he didn’t want us to judge these things?
Tony: I see prayers answered daily!
Yes, but the kinds of answers you have seen are not objectively verifiable. I have no doubt they seem completely real to you, but Muslims and Hindus say the same thing and if you did a statistical analysis you would find that the prayers of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and everyone else are answered with an equal frequency which is statistically indistinguishable from zero. I hope you see that I am merely speaking truth here. Humans believe what they want to believe and have selective memories. They often believe that their prayers get answered, but then they have elaborate excuses for God when he fails to ever answer any real prayers like those of a mother whose child just lost a leg. God has never restored a missing limb! Please think about that because that is what I mean when I say that God does not, as a general rule, answer prayers. And this is a huge problem because the Bible tells us that he does.
Tony: You talked about the false prophets …
It’s not just a few here or there. The entire leadership of Liberty University and the entire leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention and leading Christian apologists like Norm Geisler and John Ankerberg and many fundamentalist Christian ministries have actively conspired to cover up the TEN YEARS of blatant lies told by Ergun Caner. Liberty would never have “fired” him if they were not forced by other Christians whom they demonized. All of this is coming from people who claim to be “Christian.” I want nothing to do with them or their false beliefs which corrupted their minds. I despise the “fruit” that has grown from that tree.
I have no choice but to think for myself, and when I do that, I recognize that most of the “traditional Christian teachings” were invented by people that I would have despised, like the many evil leaders in the Roman Catholic Church that ruled Europe for over a thousand years. Think about that. Where was God during all those years? What was the fate of the souls that could not come to real faith because they were not able to read the Bible? Your modern concept of Christianity has no foundation in history.
Has Christianity really produced fruit worthy of God?
Tony: I Know I am no match for a debate with you …
Well, I hope that doesn’t stop you from having a conversation with me!
Again, I really appreciate your comments, and I know how confusing it must be to see someone like me change my mind.
All the best,
Richard
“I love you. Come to Me.”
Richard,
I appreciate your reply. I have to agree with you, for I have never seen a limb restored whole either. However, does that make God unable to do it? I can’t debate statistics of prayers answered from each particular religion, but I can say I have seen God work in my life. I have seen many people do a complete 180 degree change in their life when they met Jesus at the cross. Which includes ones who were addicted to drugs, alcohol, gang members, and the like, so are they not evidence of miracles?
False prophets… yes there are many, but like I stated before, didn’t Jesus say it would be so? Just go to the book of Mathew and see where Jesus describes false prophets and how they could even deceive the very elect.
If you look at 2 Timothy 3
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people
Is this what we see today? Also I recall from scripture: natural love will wax cold… I have seen so many instances for example, a guy throws his baby out the window on a highway because he was fighting with his wife… so many women rather do drugs than take care of their children… men who forgo their family responsibilities and seek pleasures of their own leaving their kids to the mothers to raise. As we relent to instill the Lord’s teachings in our children, we will continue to see the degradation of society. We see 2 Timothy 3 fulfilled right before our very eyes.
Freedom from sin… does it mean we are free from sinning or are we free from the wages of sin? We still live in the flesh and have fleshly desires, and at times stumble, but thankfully we are under grace. Does that mean we have a license to sin… no, but we have the freedom to come boldly to the throne of Grace. Unfortunately, I have seen this abused, but doesn’t God as well? We are known by our fruits. The Lord said He would separate the sheep from the goats. Our job is to stay focused on Him and not ones who are imperfect.
I can’t explain why God had Israel destroy those people, but we are only viewing through our perspective and with our limited understanding. What if we had the eyes of God? Can you imagine what God sees in the heart of every person? Why did God bring Jonah to Nineveh instead of destroying them? I believe Jonah was taught a wonderful lesson of forgiveness that still speaks to us today. Why didn’t God have mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah? Why does God allow tragedy to happen to His children? How many times have you heard of someone going through a serious trial in their life, yet use that tragedy to change things for the good? We tend to view things in the temporal instead of eternal, so if God views things eternally, then temporal is really insignificant. If we suffer for the short time on earth and are rewarded greatly for eternity, then really the time suffering is really insignificant when viewed against eternity. Any defined amount of time is equal to zero when compared to eternity.
With the evidence and brilliancy of the Bible Wheel, how can you refute the bible as not true? You surely can’t conclude the Bible is true in some ways and not others, because that wouldn’t make sense. Its either true or not true. Just because we can’t understand some things we shouldn’t allow that to turn us away from the one who created us. I know the argument isn’t whether there is a God, just whether you want to worship a God who could do what you believe was evil in intend . So really if we can conclude, which I am sure you do, there is a God, then which God out of all the religions is the true God of creation. I would have to conclude the only way we can be certain God of the bible is real is by our relationship with Him, and the fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus gave us numerous prophecies for this very reason. For me, it solidifies my belief. To look at the return of Israel as a nation after 2000 years is incredible evidence of the accuracy of God’s word. Isn’t it fascinating seeing the nation of Israel in the news daily, even though it’s the size of Tennessee? Didn’t God say Jerusalem would be a stumbling block amongst the nations in the last days? There have been many times I have laid the news paper side by side with the Bible and sit in wonder that it was written so many years ago.
I can’t say I understand all what God has laid out for His creation, but I do believe if everyone were to live their lives according to the principles to Love God with all your heart and love thy neighbor as themselves, we would have a perfect society. Those 2 commands really sums up God’s word. We can have all the intellect, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding we can handle, but if we lack Love we have nothing. You have a wonderful day Richard! and I enjoy the opportunity to continue our discussion further. Thank you for listening.
Tony
1Ti 1:18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,
1Ti 1:19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,
1Ti 1:20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Hi Conrad,
Verses without context don’t have much meaning. What do those verses have to do with anything I have written? Do they help me understand why I should believe in a God who commands his people to become mass murderers of women and children? Does your post help me understand the many errors in the Bible? Does it help in any way at all? If not, why did you post it? Here’s a relevant bit of preaching for you from an article by Dr. Bernie Miller of the New Covenant Fellowship Church:
I would be delighted if you would like to have an intelligent and informed conversation with me about the problems I have encountered with the Bible and the Christian faith.
All the best,
Richard
Hi Tony,
I really appreciate your post and your effort to reason with me. Thanks!
You wrote:
I’m really glad that we can agree about the facts of the matter. God does not, as a general rule, answer prayers. But yes, there are many “miraculous” life changes in people who come to faith in Christ after being “down and out.” I think that shows the value of Christianity – some people need to be “saved” from horrible conditions and Christianity can serve as a kind of “hospital” for sick souls. But not everyone is sick, and when the sick get better and start thinking about the “big picture” of what Christianity really teaches, they encounter the kinds of problems that I have been discussing.
I’m always surprised when folks think that they are in the “end times” because they think their own generation is so much worse than all that came before. Christians have been believing this for nearly 2000 years now! Luther thought it was “obviously” the end of the world over four hundred years ago because he saw the abuses in the Catholic Church, which he and the Reformers identified as the “Antichrist.”
This seems very irrational to me because it ignores all the moral advancements that have happened in the world. Think about it! People think the USA used to be a great moral and Godly nation …. when? When we had slaves? When we murdered countless native Americans? When we didn’t allow women to vote? When we had no civil rights laws? There never was a time when America was a “Christian” nation in the sense of being moral, and by any authentic standard, I would have to say that we are much more moral now than at any time in the past!
As for your reference to Matthew 24 – that chapter is known as the “Olivet Discourse.” Christ opened it by predicting the destruction of the Temple. Everything he said was predicated on that event. He was talking about false prophets that would come before it happened. John picked up on this when he said that he knew it was the “last hour” (back then, in the first century) because many “antichrist” had arisen, just as Christ predicted in Matthew 24. Paul said that the “ends of the ages” had come upon first century Christians, and Hebrews said that Christ spoke “in these last days” and that he was crucified “at the end of the age.” And every book of the NT speaks as if the “end” would happen very soon, during their own lifetimes. Everything in the Bible confirms this fact – the “end times” happened in the first century. So your application of those verses to the present time just doesn’t make any sense to me at all. But I understand why you think they do apply – almost all Bible teachers are teaching gross falsehoods on this topic. They completely ignore what the Bible actually states and how the events were historical fulfilled. I find this outrageously ironic, because the fulfillment of those prophecies offer some of the strongest evidence for the Bible.
The first question you ask is very old – Paul addressed it in Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Obviously, this is not the point I was trying to make. The point is that the “freedom from sin” is purely imaginary. It exists only in our minds. It may be true – perhaps believers will not have to pay the “wages of sin” in an afterlife, but we won’t know till we get there. But one thing we do know, we will all pay the “wages of sin” in this life no matter what we believe because we all die! And we all sin! That was my point.
The Bible says that God’s ways are HIGHER than our ways, not LOWER. Think about what it would be like to be an Israeli soldier. It would brutalize your soul to the point of death. The Lord God Almighty has commanded you to slay everyone. So you go forth and find a village. You rip open a tent and see a 17 year old mother of two – one toddler and one at her breast – and she begs for her life, but you have no mercy, no kindness, no humanity as you swing your sword and slice her toddler in half. Her face is now covered in the blood and guts of her firstborn, and she screams and begs for mercy again, but you have no mercy. You are obeying your God and have become a baby-killer. She begs again, she clings to your feet and you kicker her away like a dog and bring down your sword, impaling her baby and her heart in one fell swoop. Then you move on to the next tent, and the next, and the next until your soul is brutalized to the point of death.
God is supposed to be the FOUNDATION of morality. But what do we see when we look in the Bible? We see all sorts of grossly immoral things attributed to God. There cannot be any facile solution like “his ways are higher than our ways” because we are supposed to be learning our morality from him. Yet the opposite is the case. Our moral intuitions are much higher than the morality we see in the Bible. That’s the problem, and I honestly do not believe there is any solution to it. The best Christian minds have struggled with it and they all have miserably failed.
Good question! I have re-evalutated the Bible Wheel with the same critical eye that caused me to admit the errors in the Bible, but I have not found anything to reject as yet, except my conclusions about how it proves that God designed it. I’m now simply mystified by how it came to be.
But there is an error in your logic. To say “It is either true or not true” doesn’t really mean anything. The Bible makes no claims about itself because it doesn’t ever refer to itself as such. You have imposed your concept of the “Word of God” upon the Bible, and then went further and imposed the idea that the Bible must conform to your idea of “truth.” There is no basis for that. Who are you to complain if God wanted to write a fully inspired work of fiction – like a divine historical novel – that accomplished what he wanted it to accomplish? That’s the problem with modern fundamentalist who tell God what he has to do in his own book! Think of it like this – the HIGHEST VIEW of Scripture is to assume that it is exactly as God desired it to be, warts and all. When we read it in this light, we quickly learn that God wanted it to appear to be full of errors, contradictions, logical absurdities and even moral abominations attributed to God. And there is a reason for this – if we assume that God designed the Bible, then he designed it to make Biblical fundamentalism an impossibility (for honest readers, anyway). This is where Christian apologists make there fundamental error. The sacrifice their integrity to support an entirely unbiblical and irrational doctrine about the “inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.” They deny the Bible is as God intended it to be and go about to “fix it” with lame and ludicrous “explanations” that make God look like a moron who couldn’t write for the Sunday comics! They deny their own assumption when they try to “fix” the Bible.
Well, the problem is that I have come to realize that the traditional concept of God in Christian theism makes no sense to me. I say that the “God of theism” makes no sense because it is a combination of the pagan anthropic “war god” who goes about “doing things” with the utterly abstract “God of the Philosophers” who is “pure being” and unchanging and absolutely omniscient which means he never had a chance to make any decisions because he already would have known what he would have chosen, and this means he is nothing like a “person” in any sense at all. And then we throw in the doctrine of the Trinity on top of that and on and on we build confusion atop confusion and call it salvation?
I’m not an atheist, but I’m definitely an agnostic, and I very much doubt that there is a “theistic” style God. I think the reality is probably more along the lines of the “Ground of Being” or “Cosmic Mind.” But I really don’t know, and I have yet to meet anyone who does. I don’t have any reason to think that any of the “world’s religions” have gotten it right.
First, the “personal relationship” can never lead to objective knowledge because the Muslims and Hindus and Mormons (with their burning in the bosom proof) and every contradictory variety of Christianity makes the same claim. So how could you possibly think that your personal experience is right and everyone else is wrong?
Second, the establishment of the modern state of Israel has nothing to do with Biblical prophecy and there is no reason to think that it is a “re-establishment” of the Biblical Israel. It is a modern secular state with no historical continuity with the “Israel” that God judged and destroyed in the first century. There is a great irony here because the Futurist doctrines that claim modern Israel is a great “proof” of Bible prophecy actually deny and contradict the genuine prophecies that were fulfilled in 70 AD. And worse, they make up a mountain of false and absurd doctrines that have no foundation whatsoever in the Bible, such as the 2000+ year gap in Daniel 9:26-27, the idea of a re-built Temple that will be re-desolated by the re-vived Roman empire, and so on and so forth. And in the process of making up this pure fantasy eschatology, they deny the real evidence of the prophecies that really were fulfilled in the first century. I’ve debated with Futurists for years on my forum and I have never met a single one who could successfully defend their doctrines from the Bible. NOT ONE!
I agree that the world would be a lot better if folks loved each other. But I’m not sure what it means to “love God.” It would be interesting if you wanted to explain what the idea means to you. The Bible, of course, equates loving your neighbor with loving God, so the idea may be superfluous.
Thanks again for taking the time to discuss this with me.
All the very best,
Richard
Very sad to hear you have become a poster child for end times prophecy.
Besides “The love of many will grow cold”, there is 2 Thess. 2:1-3, 1Tim. 4:1 & Amos 8:11. To have had the revelation of the word you have, via the Bible Wheel and then turn as you have, is very sad indeed. Seems you have become judge of God and his people.
I won’t argue points with you, but only suggest what has happened to you is often what happens when someone has had a great revelation from the Lord, the devil has been extremely angered by your efforts and has moved in with his lying imp’s to break you and make a fool of you. But rather than condemn, I will keep you in my prayers for a break through. Because, but by the grace of God, there goes I.
Hey there Timothy,
I appreciate your straight talk, so I’ll give you the same in return. First, let me say that your assertion that I’ve been “deceived by the devil” demonstrates again how Christianity corrupts the mind because you ignored all the LOGIC AND FACTS that I presented and chose rather to make a claim that has no objective validity whatsoever. Suppose I have been “deceived by the devil.” How would you know? How would I know? If you can’t state any specific errors in anything I have written, then your claim is as empty as it is absurd. But you can’t see this because your mind has been corrupted by your mind-hating religion which has taught you to reject all TRUTH and REALITY in favor of the unsupported and unsupportable “beliefs” that you have been told to believe.
As for the “end times” – I’ve been debating folks like you who think we are in the “end times” for years on my forum. None of them have ever been able to support their doctrines from the Bible. It’s all mindless garbage and completely unbiblical. They claim to take the Bible “literally” and then deny what it plainly states on every page. And they invent things that have no foundation in Scripture at all like the magically stretchy 2000+ year gap inserted between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel 9, the re-built Temple that will be re-desolated by the re-vived Roman empire, and on and on they go. It’s all crap yet it is taught from a thousand pulpits. And the followers of it are utterly irrational and when confronted with the truth they simply close their eyes, plug their ears, and run away screaming. And folks who believe in it constantly make false predictions about Jesus coming back “soon.” Even famous leaders like Chuck Smith – the founder of Calvary Chapel – got “enraptured” with this error and predicted the return of Christ before 1981 (proof). They have always been wrong – indeed, they have a perfect track record of being 100% wrong for 2000 years! And you want me to believe that crap? LOL.
I trust I have lived up to your accusation that I have been “deceived by the devil.” If you don’t like the style of conversation initiated by comments like yours and would rather have a rational discourse, all you need to do is begin by posting a rational comment.
Have a nice day.
Hi Richard
Im not from the U.S, so excuse my language fails.
I have interested me in why you dont believe the God of the bible anymore.
If we can solve the problem of killings the woman and children inside the tents, will you use another scripture you have problem with believing?
I also have problem with believing everything as i dont know everything and never will i, i will partly see the fullness of heaven. But when i die, i will live to see everything clearley.
What if the jews had to kill those people, because God saw the big picture of letting them live. You say why couldnt God do it so the jews didnt have to go trough the killings. Well, maybe that would have made the jews always crying unto God for killing their enemies. People seemed in that time to be difficult unable to be changed by the love of God, because Jesus wasnt born yet as a man. But that was Gods plan with the OT.
The jews now saw that God was very protective about his people and the law. Giviong them more respect of God. But as we see in scripture, they easily forget and turns to other gods.
It makes me understand the cruelty of people and in myself. I would never sliced the throat of another because i would have to much love in me to do so, but i can do other bad things, but if Jesus is by my side, i do nothing wrong, if i have the right picture of the agape-love of Jesus to me. But i tend to push him away sometimes and do alot of wrongs that is hurtful to me and others, and showing that lust overpowers me.
You say that the bible is confusing the people, so there is something wrong with the bible, and that science books do not confuse people, and the biblewheel dosent confuse, because its hard rock proof, that dosent need believing.
You know what the confusing part is for you, its the believing. Proof you can relax with, and its good to have with believing, it gives more respect and should make people think twice before they do wrong.
Many are confused in their believing seeing that many are sick and can be decieved and choose to decieve them because they themselves lack proof of their faith and instead goes for their lusts. That Jesus said in the seeds that bare fruit for a while, but that dosent proove that there is something wrong with the bible.
What if those people who do wrong and turns away from a loving God, what if they live in an afterlife without the precence of the loving God. Can they ever repent when it takes love to repent?
After Jesus, the world needstime to heal, not just 35 years and then it was the end times, the end-time for me is when we dont live in this world anymore, if i die it is my end-time. For me the healing process has taken 2000 years, and we see that where the bible has been preached is places where the blessings has come first. That is long argument, and is only backing it up with what i have learned of history and what i see on the news.
I dont think the whole world would change into everyone believing in Him, so i believe we can change the destiny, that our lives is not predestined, and that is what Satan is fighting about, he wants everybody one day to be evil, and God wants everybody to get saved and come to know His love through Jesus.
So much evil that is invented today, i think only the power of God in people is protecting from instant destruction. We live now in mercy everyday.
People have now found a theory to claim to that dosent need God, and that is the evolution of 4,5 billion years. You believe in that and you have much books that can explain it, and we are morons if we dont believe it. What if God knows that people wants to not believe in him, and give them a ground to dig in to find those theories. It is a free will process. And the atheists laugh of stupid believer of Noahs Ark.
Well, i would have more difficulties of explaining God and the bible is correct if that story wasnt there, what would then explain the clams in mount everest, it must have been tha 4,5 billion years, thats enough time to explain everything.
Or the long life of people before Noah.
You ar not against God or the bible, since you claim something supernatural in the bible through the biblewheel and gematria of Vernon Jenkins, but you dont like people claiming there is nothing wrong with the bible, and that they dont believe in 4,5 billion years of evolution. I dont know if you even are against Jesus, but your prayerproofs are stupid for us, and we are stupid for you believing in prayers.
I can see the bible as a mirror, a wriddle, you know there is something that you have to solve. The stories is in fact mirrored through our lives and history, who people was then and the changing in time trhrough the true love of God, Jesus.
I want to add something, we are hurters and lovers, haters and forgivers, lifegivers and deathbringers. We are all taking the punishment for our sins, and that is death.
What if my statements makes the butterflyeffect and makes people take drugs and have a bad life, or even take suicide. Is that my fault in Gods courtroom?
If i am to be jugded for it, i would say it must be because i didnt have the knowlegde that that could happen. Well it happened, your statements made this man go kill himself.
Then i think, that if Jesus, (taken the point that He is true) was with me, he could learn my spirit to not say such statements, if he was popping by my side every time i was about to do wrong, and telling me why it was wrong, and would learn much love. And would be like Jesus.
But this dont happen, but our beliefs in Jesus makes Him pop in more than people who dont believe in Him, God knows whos popping in by their side, in the spirit-world.
“This is the works that God want you to do, that you believe in Him who He hath Sent.”
And if you truly believe in Him, your faith will grow, and you can cast that law that is strenghtening your sins, out into the sea. He is the provider of real agape-love. When people dont believe in Him, they provide only selfish love. And that is making statments that make people not believe in good anymore.
Hi Roberto,
Don’t worry about your language skills. I am able to understand you. What is your native tongue?
No, because there are many other problems too. For example, it is impossible for me to believe in the doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell. And there are many scientific and historical errors like the story of creation and Adam and Eve and the flood. I explained some of these reasons in my post called Why I Quit Christianity.
Many people hope that these things that “seem” so evil will make sense when we die, but I have no reason to think that is true. They look terribly evil, and no one has given me any reason to think otherwise. I believed in the Bible for many reasons, but now that I am re-evaluating it, I see that those reasons don’t hold up. Can you explain why I should believe the Bible?
It seems very strange that you mention “God’s love” in this context. There is no “love” expressed in the command to kill all the women and children. And what does it say about Christians who defend genocide? I thought that morality was supposed to be absolute! But now I see that Christians accept pure evil if the Bible teaches it. This is the problem. The Bible is supposed to be a source for good morals, but really, our human morals are much higher than the morals of the Bible. That’s the problem.
How does it help you understand cruelty in yourself? We are talking about the cruelty of God! God has no trouble commanding murder of babies, but you wouldn’t do that because you have “too much love.” I’m glad that’s true, but think about what it means. You have much more love than the God presented in the Bible.
This is a HUGE problem with the Gospel. Christians are commanded to love everyone, but God doesn’t love everyone. God hates many people so much that he plans on casting them away into a pit where they will suffer for ever and ever and ever and ever with no hope! So again, you and I have much more love than that kind of God. Obviously, there is something fundamentally wrong with Christianity.
I don’t “believe” in evolution. It’s just the best explanation I’ve seen so far.
You idea that God gave unbelievers “ground to dig in” so they can have a reason to “not believe” makes no sense to me, though I used to think that way. But now I see that “belief” is not a virtue at all! Why is it good to “believe” something someone tells you about God? Why is that “good?” And why is “making a free will choice” to believe so important? And if it’s so important, why did God leave most of the people in the dark without the Bible? And why did he make a Bible that is so confusing that no one agrees what it means? And on and on it goes. The idea of Christianity, or any religion that depends upon blind faith, makes no sense at all to me.
Clams in the mountains are easy to explain – the mountains are pushed up by tectonic forces.
As for the “long life of people before Noah” – where is the evidence that there ever was a Noah, let alone people who lived “long lives” before him? It sounds like you just believe things that you have been told without looking for evidence. That is a very big mistake. How would you know if you were wrong?
That’s right – I am not “against” God or the Bible at all. I’m just trying to understand what they mean. The “prayer proofs” are stupid because they are false.
Thanks for taking time to share your ideas with us on this topic.
All the best,
Richard
What makes you think “God” has a “courtroom?” That’s a horrible image of God. He’s not like a judge who listens to lawyers, and if he were, we’d all be doomed. I find the whole “courtroom” image of God appalling. God is the “Ground of Being” the source of life, the essence of Love and Light. The idea of a human “courtroom” doesn’t fit with those ideas at all.
Have you thought that maybe the afterlife – if there is any – is equal to everyone? What happens to you happens to me. We are “all in it together.” That’s the way we should think. The idea that some go to heaven and others go to hell is one of the most evil concepts ever invented by humans.
And what does that really mean? Maybe “belief” refers to our state of consciousness, where we actually and truly “commune” with the spirit of the “Perfect Human” – perfect in Love and Truth. Infinite Compassion! The same spirit we see in all idealized religious figures like Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad (yes, the Muslims see Muhammad as the Perfect Human). It helps people realize the Divine Values like Love and Truth when they believe that the idealized religious figure was “real” but it is not necessary when a person is mature. I can manifest the Divine Values much better if I don’t get caught up in arguments about the historicity of the man Jesus.
Hi again
First of all,sorry for your national day of tragedy 9/11.
Im norwegian.
How do you cut and paste my comments partly and cursive? Is there an easy way to do that?
Okey, so solving one of your main problem just leads to another one, and this can go on forever and your intent is to show christians that they believe in too little proof.
If God love was to show that he could drive the wicked away with love in the OT, the whole bible would be the NT. Isnt the bible showing the knowlegde of good and EVIL? But if we focus on that, we wont see Jesus as the “tree of life”. Why couldnt God stop Eve from eating that fruit? Free will concept.
The bible shows us the free will concept. The wars of before Jesus, the wars of believing in Jesus, and the love that comes from Jesus.
If the bible was make love not war rainbow writings. I would not believe to come from God, it would look like man-made, like budhissm, which i believe is man-made.
If not the structure and the codes wasnt there, i would maybe have lesser faith, and maybe leave faith when i see the sick people in church, i know i was one of the sick, but it looks like some people is still sick, but that is because they are condemned in their heart still, its like the devil is preaching the bible for them. That is what the devil wants, to get the people who wants to find thruth. And the best place is in the church. Like a roaring lion, imitating God, the devil goes about with his plans.
If we are the people of Adam, then thats why you and I are living now and conversate here on your blog in year 2011. We are, beacuase of the history. If we in our minds was to change history, we wouldnt be born. I see Jesus in history as a big history change, slowing down evil, even reversing evil. I cant picture in my mind a better plan. And the OT, is showing how the plan is realising further and further.
If it is true, what my friend told me, about God not being over time, but being in time with us, His only way,to know the future is by calculating the way of men in their way in knowing good and evil. Its like He’s been there already because He knows good and evil. He is actually the reason why we live and all the evil in history, because He let men live even as sinnerrs wich was not the intent. So maybe thats why God is picturing himself as a killer of men in history, He is the part of this creation.
And it makes sense that all the structure and codes in the bible lies there, because God is very calculative, which He tells when He is giving men prophecies.
I cant know everything. I’ve seen some prachers preaching about some big structure under the ground looking like Noah’s Ark close to Mount Ararat, like it has slided down from the big mountain and down to another area, ive seen pictures of that area where it looks like a boat-structure under the ground.
another climate could have given men before Noah longer life, we would never know, but the bible looks like its describing different climates then, and showing the age of men going down.
I’ve seen how answersingenesis-website explains that science cant be trusted as written in a science-magazine, because they usually always tell, that there is no God, the discoveries is then around the 4,5 billion years of no God.
And leaving OoP-parts unwritten, and leave that to pseudo science as if it dosent matter, then they have twisting ideas that a flood or a nature catastrophe put that out of place. But they laugh when we tell that Noahs flood put it there. It makes me think that God wants science to be on both sides, they can have equal good stories, but its up to you if you want to believe what it says in the bible or not.
God dont want anything to be taken away in the bible, and if there are many bible-translation or booknumbers, i would search for the best, and many says that is the KJV, and now we are in the time we can learn hebrew meanings and greek meanings as well, even if the world try to give us so much chores, that we loose time to find the meaning of life.
The bible saying something about we shall all be jugded, but i think like if you have Jesus in your life, the jugde only looks in the faults of Jesus, like the high-priest did with the offer-lamb that was an offering for their sins. We would never know what really happens except what we believe, if we believe that we can go to hell, that gives a shitty life worrying. But Jesus said not to worry, we believe in Him, and thats how you are walking in the path of no-worry. It is good, and we should give others that, we should start in the church, where many dont believe that, but worries about going to hell and preach to others that stupid, taking the law in again that is condemming to live a dying life. I dont know what you mean about we are all in this together, we all have a choice, our life is not predestined. But i understand Jesus takes away all sin, in your past and fututre, but you have to believe in Him, and want to want Him as a part of your life, then you are going in the right direction, wheter you sin or not.
I was to hear several days of Buddha, Krishna, Muammed, and Jesus, and No-God-atheism. I would say Jesus is out of this world, the rest is man-made.
But if i was to be born in Afghanistan and be grown up with Muslim teaching, not knowing about Jesus. I still would have choices from the heart that God still can jugde, then He would jugde it out of the choices i had. W are of much choice, but it will be like arguing about the people working in the field getting the same pay as they who worked in the last hour, it is the pay-giver who decides even if it to you looks like unrighteouss.
Hi Roberto,
Thank you for your condolences to us for our national tragedy. I think it is a good day to remember that we have a choice how to react. The wars that followed were a greater tragedy than the barbarous acts that initiated them. So today many of us from around the world will join together as ONE in spirit and pledge to send out love to the world and to pursue peace with all our lives. Here is the webpage describing the event:
http://www.onetheevent.org
I also would like to say how sorry I was to hear of your tragedy with the recent shootings in Norway.
Isn’t “Roberto” an unusual name for a Norwegian?
As for how I copied and pasted your comments. Most WordPress blogs like mine allow people to use some basic HTML tags to format their posts. You can use bold, italics, anchor tags for links, and the “blockquote” tag that indents the text you are quoting.
That’s an interesting way to put it. I agree that there can be great lessons in the pattern of the Bible. That’s not the problem. The problem is how people interpret it – they take it literally, and they use it to judge others and to declare what God is really like. The same contrast between good and evil would be there even if the whole book were fiction, like a “divine historical novel.” And if understood that way, I don’t see any reason to deny that it could have been inspired by “God” though the true God is nothing like the God portrayed in the Old Testament.
No matter what the truth, the most important thing is for us to free ourselves from the chains of dogmatic interpretations that ensnare our minds. We need to be free to look at what it really says and speak truth about what we see. But most Christians can’t do that, because the things that are really in the Bible contradict many of the dogmas that they have been taught. If we don’t do this, it won’t matter if every word of the Bible were straight from the mouth of God because we wouldn’t be able to properly understand it if our minds are chained in the darkness of dogmas we have inherited.
That question sounds pretty funny when we recall that it was God who “set the trap” for them in the first place! Think about it. You’ve got a young child who knows nothing about self-control or good and bad yet. But he knows that he really likes candy. He can’t help it because it’s the way he is made. So you put a big bowl of poisoned candy in the middle of the room and tell him not to eat or he will die. Then you leave the room, and after a while you send in a very tricky person who convinces the child to eat the candy. Where’s the “free will” in any of that? Adam and Eve had no more “choice” than that child. The whole situation looks like a “set up” from God to ensure they ate the fruit. If he is truly omniscient, he knew what would happen before he set it all up.
And as for free will – where does the Bible explain the purpose of the Garden in terms of “free will?”
Good point. But actually, all the violence and male bias in the OT looks even more like something merely “human” (in a degraded sense) than the high values of Love and Peace and Infinite Compassion taught in Buddhism.
I think the truth is very plain. Folks in church are no less sick than folks who don’t go to church. There is no evidence of any “devil” going about making Christians or anyone sick. It is biology. That’s why we humans have been able to use antibiotics to save millions of people that God would have let die. This is another big problem: Are scientists better than God? There were millions of people who believe in God and who prayed to God but he let them die. Then scientists come along and saved them. Why should we believe there is a God who answers prayers if he doesn’t actually answer prayers?
Those are very good points. You are correct – we cannot even contemplate changing history or we ourselves would not be here. But I’m not suggesting that we make any change. I’m just saying that the Bible has been misunderstood as “God’s literal Word.” Even when I was a Christian, I knew there were things in the Bible that made it impossible to believe it was the “inerrant and infallible Word of God.” But I still had a very high view of Scripture because of its amazing story and symbolic structure, so I would just say that it was “God’s Book.” And this is still possible for me to say, except I don’t know what “God” means any more. But I do think there is good reason to think there is something very important and even “supernatural” about the Bible. I just don’t know how to understand it all yet.
If I understand your comment, it sounds like you are talking about “Open Theism.” I think that’s a good approach to the many problems of traditional Christian theism which presents God as an unmovable absolute that exists outside of space and time and so cannot “love” or “care” or even “make a choice” but is more like a cold, abstract brute fact of nature.
But there are much better ways to prove you are “part of creation” than ordering the murder of women and children, don’t you think?
Yes, “it makes sense” for believers to find “structure and codes” in their Scriptures. Indeed, it makes so much sense that Muslims, Jews, Hindus and every other group that believe their Scriptures are “divine” believe the same thing! Everyone thinks their own Scriptures show signs of divine design. This makes it very difficult to discern between truth and falsehood because people are very easily deceived – indeed, they are often self-deceived.
Now personally, I am convinced, even as an unbeliever, that there are unique supernatural patterns in the Bible. But that doesn’t mean we should take the book “literally” or that the exoteric dogmatic Christian religion is true.
There is no real evidence for the flood, Noah’s ark, or lifespans of many centuries. And some of the most famous folks who claim to have found evidence were later proven to be liars.
Answers in Genesis is an intellectual and scientific abomination. It makes a mockery of Christianity and the Bible. Simply stated, it is pure garbage.
Have you ever heard of “consilience?” It’s the idea that truth “hangs together” to form an integrated “big picture.” Folks who want to challenge one part of science end up challenging all science. For example, the age of the earth is determined by many different and independent lines of evidence from different fields of science that all converge to confirm the same answer. If you want to claim a young earth, you need to refute all Geology and all Biology and all Astronomy and all … you get the idea.
I really appreciate all the effort and time you have given to explain your point of view. Thanks Roberto.
All the best,
Richard
Hi Richard again
Im fast replying now because for the next 12 days im working my 12/9 shift, 12 on and 9 free. Its also my birthday tomorrrow, hehe 9/12. And my name is Robert, which is a very usual name here in Norway, or Bob which we never use here.
As for the norwegian mass murderer, he isnt showing any regret yet, but still think he is a “knights templar” that is one of many to come, to bring down the “Eurabia”.
I still dont know the cut and paste trick you explained. Im not so computereducated because of my past. If I had more time maybe.
Besides believing the bible, my hobby is now looking for the patterns and structure of the bible.
About the “trap” in the garden, if that tree wasnt there, it wouldnt be free will, how can we choose freely from everything, if “everything” wasnt there?
And that tree cant be likened with candy, since the candy is about tasting, and that it must have been tasted before.
The tree needed Satan to make the desicion to eat of it. That tree having two sides, meaning Satan could have shown the good side of it, hiding the evil. But thats interpretation of what it says, and what actually happened i intend to know on the other side.
We now just have to live through it, this kind of creation, that dosent see God as the angels do, but believing in His love through Jesus. And with that we can see partly the new that is to come, and is already working in this world. The kind where God dosent need to command killings of sin. The plan is finished. Christians dont go around killing people even it it says in the bible. The dark history of the church dosent mean that its the bibles fault, that is easily refused by almost every christian living today.
Im sorry about the sick part, i didnt mean sick, like fever or cold, but religious sick, like feeling condemmned, or spiritual sickness as i categorize many crazymatics.
We live in a world where we are independent of doctors, you said yourself that Luke was a doctor and they had doctors in biblical times, washing their hands in running water and so. But we can believe in healing as it is a part of the promise, taking the holy communion as Paul was advising because there were many sick in the church.
And as this structure/patterns in the bible has to be found and shown to others because of lack of faith, we need doctors where faith is lacking, and if 99% of your faith is lacking in healing, you would still have 1%. Some have much more, some have none, but still believes in the bible for some reason.
If healing was for everyone who prayed for it, people wouldnt change their hearts and become yet again angry for not being healed, some would want to buy it maybe, beacuse they dont want anything with God to do.
I have some prayerproofs, but it could be coinsidence, but i dont want to give thanks to coincidence, i call it Jesus, and there is much more then what you find in islam or buddhism.
Jesus is the only faith where you dont have to earn the favour, but still in the change to betterness. Isnt it?
Just because God is not over time dosent mean that it is “Open Theism” because it never says that God is over time. That just misiterpretation my friend found out. And there is a preacher in America called Andrew Wommack that claims the same, But not many others, i have used to listen to Joseph Prince from Singapore, thats when grace gospel came in.
Instead of me reading i was not good enough with my eyes not seeing grace.
I read myself, and i self make the claim if they are liars, Im certainley not looking to people who dont believe in the bible to claim the bible is a lie.
So now i believe in the bible, and i read from AiG articles upon articles and make my own opinion. They have as much writings as any atheist-website about creation. And if i was to read everything i would have died a shitty life.
I can believe that they find out the earth is old by their tools of finding out, but that can be just how the earth is structured. Its like the “fly” that only live for one day, that is his whole life, for us its one day. Another climate changes the time dating as well. And for the clams on mount everest, it says they were shut like oof sudden death, when its not sudden death, clams open when they die. tectonic plates over time would have pushed up clams dying natural. Difficult to reexplain, but its what AiG says, and the refutes of those is not satisfying as well as you are not satisied with AiG. But i would be interested in some few websites that easily explain away AiG’s articles.
Actually its like believing when life started with Adam, and the around 6000 years from there, how the earth before that and the stars and so is not of matter, like its not a matter for darwinist, because they also have their theories from when life started, what caused life to start and before that, it is not possible to explain. Just because we find galaxies billions of lightyears away, it dosent mean the universe is that old. If God covers the whole universe, the distance for him from one galaxy to another, is a footlength, or an fingertip length.
You know all the so called “scientific facts” in the bible, about the earth hanging on nothing and so on, so that is also satisfying. And i also believe in fast evolution in the tiger,lion, housecat, they look the same, and maybe in some point where animals grew big fast, they stopped at different sizes like cheetah, mountain lion, and also housecats which can get very big, and very small, like the dogs chiahuahua and Grand Danios. You can say i have little proof, but science of creationist is not laid down, and untill then i believe in the stories of the bible to be true, even if there is cruelty, i look to “the tree of life” Jesus, and spend time to know His Love for me, believing in Him and preach to those who wants the gospel. And change the churches which is preaching condemming God, if that is possible, but i tend to go where grace gospel is preached, and it looks like its overcoming the churches of condemming. A turning point, and like i also see an end to peoples behaviour, where they cant raise children anymore, because they have to much problems themselves, its like the world itself is blowing on the last thrumpeth.
There has always been evil here and there, but now its sickening the whole wide world, the destruction is visible, but people tend to close their eyes, and let what happen, happen, even if its evil. I think this time is calculated by God to happen, even if you say it was in 70 AD. That for me is just that its nothing new under the sun. The temple now is now the heart of every men that is being destroyed.
Hi Robert,
Happy birthday!
What kind of work do you do? I’m a freelance software engineer. I’m currently upgrading my skill set to include development of iPhone apps.
Yeah … he sounds like a mental case. It’s a real pity someone didn’t notice his problems and get him on medication or something.
Theres’ not “trick” really. It’s just standard HTML tags. You write them like this:
< blockquote >
Put stuff here …
< /blockquote >
But you have to remove the spaces before and after the angle brackets < >. I had to put spaces in or you wouldn’t see the tags because the browser would have rendered them to look like this:
Give it a shot and see what happens.
The Bible is endlessly fascinating. It really does have amazing patterns on many different levels. Some of the patterns were the kind that humans easily could have put there, such as the passages like Psalm 119 that follow the Hebrew alphabet. But others could not have been deliberate, like the Bible Wheel, the Isaiah-Bible Correlation, and the Holographs. But some patterns aren’t real, like the ELS patterns that supposedly “predicted” events in the past.
The hardest part of looking for patterns is to discern between chance and design. Not everything that looks like a pattern was designed.
I can choose freely anything. I don’t need that Tree to be here now for me to be free to choose.
Have you forgotten what the Bible says?
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Eve “saw the tree was good for food” just like a child might “see” that candy is good for food. I think the analogy works just fine.
I don’t think the Tree had two sides – one good and one evil. The Tree itself was good. It was the fruit of the tree that gave knowledge to discern between good and evil. And this brings up a very big problem with the story. How could Adam and Eve have free will if they didn’t know the difference between good and evil yet? To choose the “good” over the “evil” you have to know the difference! So the “free will” argument doesn’t work.
Actually, the “dark history” lasted for more than a thousand years as the Roman Catholic Church ruled Europe. There is no sign of “God” in any of that. And the ordinary people had little or no knowledge about the Bible like people do today because they couldn’t even read. So the “Gospel” didn’t apply to them. Christianity was just something they were told to “believe” or die. And if their ruler changed his religion from Catholic to Protestant, so did they. It really wasn’t anything like modern Christianity. So what happens to all those souls who lived and died without any real knowledge of Christianity? And what about all the other souls in other parts of the world that never heard the name of Christ? There are too many problems like this to make the religion believable. It just doesn’t make sense that God would determine you eternal destiny according to your opinions about a story from the first century.
Well, the patterns in the Bible convince very few people. Indeed, most Christians don’t even believe in them.
You say we need doctors because of lack of faith. That is not true. We need doctors because God does not, as a general rule, heal anyone no matter how much faith they have. This is easy to prove. Take 1000 devout Christians with perfect faith and the plague, and then take 1000 atheists with no faith and the plague and antibiotics. Who lives? Who dies? Case closed.
The Bible promises that healing is for everyone. But in truth, healing never really happens, or at least not like the Bible says. The few stories of healings here or there are mostly psychosomatic or just made up. They are almost never verifiable, and the few that are verifiable could have been coincidences or something else. Every religions claims their God heals believers, but none really do.
I’m glad you understand about coincidence. Anyone who prays – whether to God or Allah or whatever – will have some coincidences that convince them their prayers were answered. But none have proof that would convince a skeptic.
All I can say is that AiG is a very unreliable source. They have been proven wrong a thousand times. You are wasting your time and your life reading their stuff. The only way they could be fooling you is if you don’t have real knowledge about real science. And if that’s the case, why don’t you first learn real science? When I say “real science” I’m talking about the science that defines the modern age – the science that made the computer you are using to read the AiG website! The fake science on AiG could never produce anything real like a computer or a rocket to the moon. They are just playing with words and deceiving people. You should not let yourself be deceived. Think about how ironic it is when you claim to love Jesus and Truth but then believe lies told by the “Christians” running AiG.
That verse is not “scientific” – it was merely poetic. If you try to say it is scientific, then we know the Bible is wrong from the very beginning because it says there is a solid dome “firmament” holding up the waters that are “above” – but there is no dome and there is no water. So it looks crazy to grab a poetic verse from Isaiah and claiming it is “scientific” while ignoring the outrageous scientific errors in the creation story.
It doesn’t make any sense to deny the scientific theory of evolution and then invent a new creations theory of “fast evolution” to explain how we go so much variation after the flood. Your entire program is doomed to failure.
Have you read any books about the real science of evolution? I very much recommend The Making of the Fittest. It explains how DNA evidence – the same kind of evidence used to convict people in court – gives very strong evidence of common descent and evolution.
Yes I say you have little proof – and worse, you have no answer to all the evidence that contradicts your ideas. It’s fine if you want to believe in Jesus. I have no problem with that. It may do you some good. But I do feel sorry for you if you reject the truths that are now common knowledge amongst the people of the 21st century. But hey – it’s your life, and I wish for you all the best.
Great chatting!
Richard
To everyone who doesn’t blindly believe what they are told and actually reasons everything out INCLUDING religion. Check out The Reason For God by Timothy Keller. “A tight, accessible case for reasoned belief.” – The Washington Post
Hi Matthew,
I own that book. I read the first few chapters but did not find it very helpful for the issues I am dealing with. Perhaps I should take another look. Have you read it, or did you merely see the review in the Washington Post? I would be very interested to know your take on Chapter 5 “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?”. I quit reading after that chapter because he failed miserably, and that problem is a “deal breaker” for me. And what about Keller’s assertion that the Bible is infallible? You don’t have any problem with that?
All the best,
Richard
Hi Richard,
Thank you for getting back to me. I am actually enjoying this discussion with you. I am going to comment on some of your answers.
You wrote: I’m really glad that we can agree about the facts of the matter. God does not, as a general rule, answer prayers. But yes, there are many “miraculous” life changes in people who come to faith in Christ after being “down and out.” I think that shows the value of Christianity – some people need to be “saved” from horrible conditions and Christianity can serve as a kind of “hospital” for sick souls. But not everyone is sick, and when the sick get better and start thinking about the “big picture” of what Christianity really teaches, they encounter the kinds of problems that I have been discussing.
I don’t agree with your comment God generally doesn’t answer prayers because you are strictly looking at answered prayers based on someone’s limb being restored. I have had many answered prayers some answered quickly others in time. As far as not everyone is sick theory is based on what? What are you comparing sick to? Our standards or the standards God has laid out in His word? The big picture to me is to love one another as Jesus loved us. Isn’t that what it is all about?
You wrote:
I’m always surprised when folks think that they are in the “end times” because they think their own generation is so much worse than all that came before. Christians have been believing this for nearly 2000 years now! Luther thought it was “obviously” the end of the world over four hundred years ago because he saw the abuses in the Catholic Church, which he and the Reformers identified as the “Antichrist.”
I agree many generations thought the return of Christ was imminent, even the apostles, but does that make it wrong to think this generation could be the last? I am not going to debate the theory’s put forth by many because I can poke wholes in all of them in some way or another., however, If you step back and use common sense and contemplate some things that are taking place we may conclude there is some merit to these things. How about why is Jerusalem so important to the whole world? Don’t you think its incredible Israel has become a nation again after so many years? Isn’t it remarkable their deserts are bearing fruits and vegetables since returning to their homeland instead of the thorns and thistles it once was? Isn’t it intriguing Israel has become a focal point in the world even though it’s the size of Tennessee? How about Babylon coming back to center stage in Iraq? Its been rebuilt and they have plans of making it a great tourist attraction. I spoke with a manager at Cheesecake factory about their growth, and it amazed me when he told me they were building one in Babylon! I am not here to try to convince you this is the end times, but how can you be so certain it isn’t? I look at things fluidly meaning I reserve the right to change my view of eschatlogy as things change. But I certainly can’t disregard the evidence as it is presenting itself. Just remember there were many prophesies listed in the old testament, yet as Jesus were fulfilling them right before their eyes, they couldn’t see them or understand what was happening, until it was all over and they looked back. The old saying hindsight is 20/20 holds true.
You Wrote: The point is that the “freedom from sin” is purely imaginary. It exists only in our minds. It may be true – perhaps believers will not have to pay the “wages of sin” in an afterlife, but we won’t know till we get there. But one thing we do know, we will all pay the “wages of sin” in this life no matter what we believe because we all die! And we all sin! That was my point.
How can you conclude its imaginary, and be so certain? What if you are wrong? What if the bible is right and Jesus did die for our sins, and He is the only way? If you accept His gift of eternal salvation and live under His grace and guidance what would you lose if you were wrong? Now what if you rejected His gift and live according to your own way and you were wrong? I sure would rather be wrong in the first scenario because what would I lose? Nothing. If I were wrong in the 2nd scenario I would lose everything.
You wrote: I’m not an atheist, but I’m definitely an agnostic, and I very much doubt that there is a “theistic” style God. I think the reality is probably more along the lines of the “Ground of Being” or “Cosmic Mind.” But I really don’t know, and I have yet to meet anyone who does. I don’t have any reason to think that any of the “world’s religions” have gotten it right.
We do have much in common Richard because I don’t believe any religion has it all right either. See the problem is when man gets their hands on things it becomes imperfect. When Jesus walked the earth, he was against the religious leaders of the day because of their false doctrine and the bondages they placed on the common people. I believe it’s the same today. People pollute the word not only with words but also with their actions, and it does get frustrating. I can’t tell you how sick I get when I see preachers on TV beg for money like they do, preying on ones who really look to them for help. I also wonder at times why God doesn’t just reveal himself without any doubt and let the people choose the way they want to go. As of yet, I don’t have those answers, but it doesn’t keep me from believing Jesus is the only way. Until I see concrete evidence the bible isn’t true, I will keep pressing forward toward the prize He has laid out for us. I will continue to get up each day thanking and praising God, doing what I feel He has guided me to do, and enjoy life with my family to the fullest.
You wrote: So how could you possibly think that your personal experience is right and everyone else is wrong?
I never said everyone else was wrong, Jesus said He was the only way and I subscribe to it. Like I said the evidence I see when one truly comes to the Lord their life was completely altered which is undeniably the best evidence there is.
You wrote: But I’m not sure what it means to “love God.” It would be interesting if you wanted to explain what the idea means to you.
I believe love is a choice, and I choose to Love God because I love His ways. Jesus said if you love me you will obey me. To me that falls under the command to Love one another. I rather follow those precepts because they foster peace, joy, contentment, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Choosing to love God also commits me to reject the way of the world which is selfishness, greed, envy, anger, bitterness, and self gratification.
May I ask what brought you to Christ in the first place? The way I see it Richard, you were blessed with a great mind and God used you to write unrefutable evidence God wrote the bible. It reminds me when Solomon ask God for wisdom, he granted his request but sadly in the end he still followed other Gods. I pray He will continue to work in you and you will be granted all the answers to your questions. The longest 12 inches is from your head to your heart! You have a blessed day my friend, and I hope to hear from you soon
Tony
Hey there Tony,
I also am enjoying this discussion. We both can benefit from comparing our points of view.
I wasn’t “strictly looking at answered prayers based on someone’s limb being restored.” I just used that as an example of the general kinds of prayers I was looking at, namely, prayers about real things that can be objectively verified. I focus on those kinds of prayers because they are the ones that really matter. The Bible teaches that God is like a father and he cares for us, and we should look to him for all our earthly needs. But if we do that, we die, whereas if we depend on our own abilities and intelligence, we live. Here is what I mean: Take 1000 devout Christians with the plague and let them pray. Then take 1000 atheists with the plague and given them antibiotics. Who lives and who dies? That pretty much settles it for me.
As for the “standards” laid out in the Bible – that’s what I was talking about. The Bible tells us to depend on God for everything and he will supply all our needs. But that simply is not true. He was perfectly willing to let millions of people die who we have saved with antibiotics. I can’t imagine any resolution of this problem.
As for Love as the “big picture” – sure, but what does love have to to with any particular religion? All people love others. It is universal. Muslims have love. Hindus have love. Atheists have love. Love certainly is not restricted to Christianity.
I’ve been debating Futurism with folks on my forum for years. I didn’t have any particular view when I first opened the forum, but that’s almost all anyone ever wanted to talk about so I began to study it in earnest. I soon discovered that all the “amazing things” that you have been told were supposedly predicted in “Biblical prophecies” are not actually in the Bible at all. There are no prophecies anywhere in the Bible about the return of Israel to the land 1900 years after the destruction of the Temple. There are no prophecies about a third (or fourth) Temple. There are no prophecies about a “revived Roman empire” or a “rebuilt Babylon.” And on and on it goes. After years of debate on my forum, I have never seen any futurist able to support their doctrines from the Bible. It’s all made up and irrational and unbiblical. Yet it is preached as Gospel truth from the vast majority of “evangelic” and “fundamentalist” churches. This helped me realize that Christianity is not a biblical religion. If you want to pursue this topic, you should probably register on my forum and discuss it there. It’s a much better format for this kind of discussion.
First, the only thing I said I was “certain” about was the fact that everyone dies, regardless of their religion. I think you missed that point.
Second, the “what if” arguments means nothing to me because it depends on the absurd notion that I am in danger of eternal damnation for holding the wrong opinion. If God really cared about my opinions, he would have made things a little more clear, or he’s nuts. Obviously, neither option is likely, so I am justified in not worrying about it.
Third, I have everything to lose if I lose my integrity. And my integrity would be destroyed if I lied and said I believed something I didn’t just because I feared the “what if I’m wrong.”
It’s good to know that you see and acknowledge the problems, and that you can admit that you don’t have all the answers. I don’t either, of course! And I’m totally fine with you maintaining your faith despite a challenge here or there since every world-view has it’s own problems. None have “all the answers.”
But I would be interested to know why you think that Jesus is the “only way.” I suspect, of course, it is because that’s how you interpret the Bible. This then leads to two additional questions: 1) Why do you think that’s the only possible interpretation? 2) Why do you believe the Bible in the first place? Were you told to believe as a child? Did you have a conversion later in life? What about the errors, contradictions, and moral abominations it attributes to God? How do you maintain a belief in the Bible as the “inerrant and infallible Word of God” given all these problems?
But folks have similar “conversion experiences” in other religions and even when they join up with a political or ideological cause. Human psychology is complex and multifaceted. I wouldn’t base my religious beliefs upon it.
That sounds like Buddhism to me. I listened to a podcast of the Dali Lama last week and he was asked what he took from Tibet with him after his exile. He said “Infinite Compassion.” The problem is that Christianity does not teach that God has “infinite Compassion” but rather that he is going to send countless souls to a place of eternal conscious torment. This looks to me like an eternal evil, and I cannot believe it could come from the true God.
The story of how I came to Christ is the story of my whole life. Suffice to say that I felt like God had was drawing me and had spoken to me quite directly on a few occasions, and there were synchronicities that I felt were designed by God to bring me to faith. My faith was greatly increased by the design I saw in the Bible, and it convinced me that the Bible was “God’s Book” though I never could believe it should be called “inerrant” or “infallible” since those are humanly crafted doctrines and they don’t seem true.
I felt like a “blood-bought born-again Bible-believing Christian” for over a decade. But questions arose and honesty and integrity forced me to speak truth concerning them. That’s how I got where I am today.
Great chatting, my friend!
Richard
Richard,
Is it evil to wipe out evil? God didn’t give the land to Abraham immediatley because the iniquity of the Amorites was not full. By the time his decendents were to enter the land, the iniquity was full. It was probably 500 years that sin grew in Canaan. We took God out of our schools only 50 years ago. Can you imagine another 450 years in America withI’m willing to bet that if you had a wife and family that you were taking into that land, you would probably not want the residents as neighbors. It’s understood that many confessing Christ don’t know Him. Many don’t understand the bible.
oops hit the wrong button…please don’t judge the author by the reader’s interpretations. God is just, even if we don’t understand it. Like the eternal hell doctrine; the place was created for rebellious angels, I don’t think it really says the man will suffer there eternallly. But if I were the creator and I came and suffered so that you wouldn’t have to and you chose not to love me in this life, why would I care to love you in eternity. Praise God I’m not God. He will love you in eternity because he doesn’t change. But He has set some game rules or there would be no justice and if there was no justice then why do we even know in our human heart a difference between right and wrong? Your work is amazing, you are amazing, you were created in His image, you have seen the light. Your questions will be answered. Thank you for the BibleWheel.
Hi Terre,
It would be one thing if God did the “wiping out.” But it’s quite another when he commands his people to become brutal baby-killers.
As for the idea that America is worse now that prayer is out of the schools – Do you think America was more “Christian” when we had prayer in segregated schools, or when we were abusing and murdering black slaves? Or when women didn’t even have the right to vote, or when there were no unions and children worked ten hour days in dark factories? It seems to me that the world is much better now. The idea that we are wicked and deserve God’s judgment is a scam used by money-grubbing preachers to fleece their flocks of money.
Hi again Terre,
All humans have a sense of justice. It obviously doesn’t come from the Bible since people who never heard of the Bible have morals, and there’s no reason to think it comes from God since even atheists have a moral sense. And indeed, one of the big reasons I quit Christianity was because the Bible attributes things to God that violate my sense of morality. How is it possible that the Bible could have so many things that don’t seem right in it? If we really believe it is “God’s Book” then we must believe that it is as God intended it to be. This means that God intended it to look like it has scientific errors, contradictions, logical absurdities, and moral abominations attributed to God. Why God would do this I do not know. But I still have evidence that the Bible was in some sense designed by some intelligence well beyond the humans that wrote and collected it together. So it’s a mystery to me right now.
As for hell: Are you suggesting that sinners will eventually be annihilated after suffering for a while in hell? That was one of the interpretations I explored when I was a Christian, but I ultimately realized it didn’t matter if I found a solution I liked, because it would not be the traditional Christian doctrine. So if I start making up my own religion to “fix” things that I don’t like about Christianity, I might as well quit the religion since I obviously don’t believe it.
As for the idea that God sends us to hell because we refuse to “love him” in this life – that doesn’t make any sense at all. I wouldn’t reject my children no matter how much they refused to love me! Am I better than God? Therefore, I cannot believe the Christian doctrine. It simply makes no sense to me. It is emotionally backwards. I heard the Dali Lama interviewed on a podcast last week. He was asked what he took from Tibet when he was exiled. He said “Infinite Compassion.” That is a magnificent concept, and I have been meditating on it since then. It is infinitely greater than anything I ever heard in Christianity because Christianity teaches that God wipes out the wicked and send people to eternal conscious torment in hell. And then I look at how Christians act and I see the fruit of those hateful doctrines. If a mere man can aspire to “Infinite Compassion” why can’t God? We see the same thing in the command to love others, even our enemies. God does not love his enemies if he kills them and sends them to hell. So what, are we better than God? There are many examples like this where the morality of the Bible falls far short of our imperfect human morality.
Thanks for the good words about the Bible Wheel. I’m sorry if my changes have disturbed you. I very much appreciate your taking time to discuss this with me.
All the best,
Richard
So we all have a sense of justice, some of us murder, rape and enslave others, but it’s immoral to destroy evil?
If you had children that chose to brutally torment and kill your other children? Wouldn’t you separate them? Wouldn’t you punish them?
Even modern nations make covenants with their gods. I believe the Bible is a historical record of a nation that made a blood covenant with the God that calls himself the Most High, probably because He is. I don’t know if you’ve studied the ancient blood covenant, but Israel did not keep the agreement and God had to carry out the penalty of the breach. True Christianity is not doctrine and it is not religion. It is a blood covenant relationship with the Most High God, not as a descendent of Israel (the rebellious), but as a co-party to the covenant Christ (the obedient) secured with his own blood.
Maybe this is hell? What if all of the written biblical prophecy has been fulfilled and we are in uncharted/unprophesied/unwritten history? What does Dali Lama have to say about the global elite that are trying to depopulate and enslave the general population of earth? They believe they get their strength from drinking the blood of real human sacrifices. Do you think “infinite compassion” will defeat the empire that has chosen to serve Lucifer as the undefeatable god? As we discuss what’s love and who’s compassionate, there really are vile defiled humans in high places that are making great strides in executing their plans to brutally torment and destroy all that is good.
Life really is about making choices, what to eat, what to wear, what to believe or not to believe. We can be decieved and led to error in our choices. Some choices can be limited, some choices can be eliminated, but the right to choose what we believe cannot be taken from us. Choose well my friend.
Thank you for discussing.
Best wishes,
Terre
Hey there Terre,
It is good to be chatting. You wrote:
I never said anything about it being immoral to destroy evil. I don’t know where you got that idea. I have no problem with doing whatever it takes to stop evil people like Hitler. But that would not imply the specific targeting of all the women and children in Germany! They were not responsible for any of the evil. It would be a great sin to deliberately target the non-combatants, especially those who were truly innocent such as the children. I find it very strange that I need to explain this point to Christians who routinely argue how evil it is to kill babies through abortion. But suddenly, when God commands the same thing in the Bible, it becomes a morally acceptable thing? This hypocrisy has been lifted to new heights by the world famous Christian apologist William Lane Craig who explicitly said that God did no harm to the children when he commanded that they be killed because they all went to heaven anyway! Here is the quote (source):
Well that’s good news! Craig just canonized all the abortionists as greater than all the saints because they got more folks into heaven than anyone else. Indeed, they succeeded where God himself would have failed because some of those babies would certainly have grown up to be unrepentant sinners destined for hell! If this is the kind of “logic” required to save God from the Bible, then I must say that the cure is much worse than the disease!
Given that I am a limited human and cannot directly influence the condition of the souls of my children because I am not God, I would probably be forced to separate the offenders to protect the others. And in extreme cases of irrational violence, I might even be forced to kill the offender to protect the innocent. But the situation would change radically if I were their Creator. I could use my infinite Wisdom and Intelligence to find a way to communicate with them and open their hearts to the truth. The categories that Christians use when discussing the God of the Bible are ridiculous. They seem to forget that God is intelligent, and that he would act in a way that is better, not worse, than humans. When we read the Bible, especially the OT, God is presented as if he were a petty human dictator. He holds grudges, and says things like this:
What is the purpose of such mass murder? If God really wanted them to be gone, he could have given them the plague or better, a desire to move to Toledo. It would have been very simple. Why did he desire to brutalize the souls of his people by turning them into merciless, sick, and twisted baby-killers? Why did he want to corrupt them? What was his purpose? How does it relate to the NT God who is defined as “love” and “light” and in whom there is no darkness?
So the real question is this: Why does the God of the OT look like and act like a Bronze Age tribal war god? Why is there a clear evolution of the Biblical God from the brutal tribal war god to the greatly advanced God of “love and light” we see in the NT?
Did you know that the term translated as “Most High” – El Elyon – was the name of a Canaanite god who was the “most high” in the pagan council of gods? There are many pagan elements in the Bible. I was rather shocked when I first discovered this. For example, 2 Peter 2:4 says that “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness.” The Greek word translated as “hell” is “Tartarus.” And what does that word mean? Is there any way for us to know? It’s not used anywhere else in the Bible, so we need to look to the pagan Greek writings for an answer, and there we find that Tartarus was the place were the pagan god Zeus imprisoned the Titans who rebelled against him! So what are we supposed to believe? That the place “Tartarus” is real, but the rest of the pagan mythology associated with it is false? Why then does it sound so similar to the pagan myth which existed long before the NT? How is anyone supposed to make sense of this as the “Word of God” – and why should we believe it anyway? I would really like to know why you believe the Bible.
Oh yes, I certainly know about the “blood covenant.” We find things like that in many ancient cultures. The Aztecs were busy cutting out the hearts of living people to appease their sun god. We are all rightly horrified by this. But we are not so easily horrified by the Biblical version, and I think there is a good reason for that. In the Bible, human sacrifice was not institutionalized – it was a “one time” event where Christ offered himself and so we are able to “spiritualize” it and see it as teaching some high values like altruism. But it has a dark side just like the Aztecs. Why would God require a blood sacrifice at all? Why couldn’t he simply forgive like you and I do on a daily basis? Are we better than God? Many Christians have rejected the “blood covenant” imagery because it looks barbaric.
Talk about “uncharted territories!” I know nothing of any Satanic blood-drinking “global elite” with a conspiracy to depopulate the world. And if they are so smart and powerful and control the world media, how exactly did you find out about them? I’m sorry, but the “map of reality” you are using is not legitimate. The realm it charts sounds like paranoid delusions to me. Don’t you realize that folks have been making up conspiracy theories like that forever, and that they’ve always been wrong?
And one point of detail – it appears you do not realize that the name “Lucifer” is not a name of the devil at all! It’s an erroneous translation that got imported into the English King James Bible from the Latin Vulgate. The name “Lucifer” is actually the Latin name for the planet Venus as seen in the morning – hence, the “Morning Star.” Exactly the same word appears in the Latin version of this verse:
How do you like that? The Latin Vulgate Bible, which was the standard Bible throughout most of Western Christianity for a thousand years, says that we should hope that “lucifer” would arise in our hearts! I hope you see how real knowledge makes a mockery of conspiracy theories that are based on ignorance, fear, and rumors.
Yes indeed, we can be “deceived.” And that’s my whole point. Folks have been told that the Bible is the “inerrant and infallible Word of God.” This is one of the greatest deceptions in the history of the world. It leads directly to the corruption of the minds and morals of whoever believes it, as evidenced by the fact that Christians cannot even assert that it’s wrong to murder babies or take virgins as “war booty.” This is the ultimate irony – Christians assert that without God, there could be no right or wrong – no “objective morality” – and then go forth to deny the most basic facts of morality merely because they have been told that everything in the Bible is true and trustworthy.
The first rule of the mind is THINK FOR YOURSELF. Most religions, including Christianity, destroy this in people and so create unthinking robots who will reject any truth that contradicts the doctrines of their religion. Thus we get suicide bombers in Islam and justification for genocide in Christianity. Once again, we see the truth of this quote by Stephen Weinberg:
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Thanks. I’m really glad you took time to share your thoughts with me. I hope you will continue to do so.
All the best,
Richard
Hello Again Richard,
Yes, I think I will continue to share;
Why I believe the bible: When my daughter wanted to join the Mormon church, I decided I better find the truth about God. Up until that time the only books that could hold my attention where J.R.R. Tolkien’s middle earth books. I set the Silmarillion next to the bible my grandma gave me when I was young and I asked “What is the difference?” I began investigating religion, beginning with Mormonism. You don’t investigate Mormonism without running head on to Freemasonry and the Illumiati. That’s where I found out about secret societies and the new world order shadow governments. There was a point in my investigations that believed, I believed that salvation was a gift and I decided to receive that gift and open it and take it out of the box and I just became hungry to learn all about the God of the bible and the bible was the only place I knew to look. I was fascinated with the Hebrew language and began doing word studies. Just like you said that there’s no question it is beyond mere human handwriting. As I studied, the supernatural began to spill out into my every day life and the author began to confirm who He was in relation to me personally. I think that is what sets Christianity apart from other religions. He is not far away, His kingdom is at hand, and it is a gift, not something that I must earn by good behavior. Scripture says that it is the goodness of God that brings a man to repentance. It has been His Goodness to me that makes me want to be good. I believe the bible because I chose to and then it became alive to me.
Regarding genocide of the Amalekites. The iniquity of the Amalekites was full, they could not get any worse. I believe this could be a good example of children that were unresponsive and uncontrollable, including the women and the offspring. Apparently, even the animals were contaminated. The point I was trying to make is that God was telling the Israelites to destroy all of the evil in the land. I believe there is much unwritten of the spiritual condition of the Amalekites. I don’t think we can really grasp how evil these people were. Personally, because I believe the bible and I believe that the Holy Spirit was not released large scale into the earth until Christ had conquered the grave and ascended to the Father. I believe you and I have never lived in a society that does not have the influence of the Holy Spirit at some level.
Regarding blood covenant: There is something about the life being in the blood and I think Satan knows more about it than we do. So the ones that follow these rituals of demons are really satisfying Satan’s desire to destroy God’s creation in a most hurtful way. The blood covenant between a man and a woman has something to do with why the Israelites could keep only the virgins. In Malachi it speaks of a remnant of the Spirit in the offspring between the wife of of his youth. I don’t think we have a complete understanding of the spiritual aspects of blood covenants, especially when it comes to human mating and offspring. And if a remnant of God’s spirit remains in the offspring of His covenant people, then maybe a remnant of Satan is transferred to the offspring of Satanists also. I recently heard a testimony of the son of a generational satanic witch whatever they call themselves. He said his mom had her bloodline traced back to an Amalekite caravan that was on a journey when the Israelites attacked. Wow, why not?
And so regarding uncharted territrories: I don’t believe that the Bible is the only source of truth. Yes, there have been conspiracy theories forever. I just believe that they are not mere theory. Currently, society, for the most part, is so distracted and brain-washed that most would rather watch football and stupid sitcoms than study history and look into the matters that are guiding society. If I didn’t trust the God of the Bible and his promises therein, I would be paranoid. I have not studied the Latin scriptures, but there are Satanists that call themselves Luciferian, Illuminati, the enlightened ones, etc. They exist, but the only power they have is the power we give them. Satan is a defeated foe. His only weapon is manipulation and deception. He is a lot better at it than we are at recognizing it. Unfortunately, there are too many that just believe the master plan of disinformation. Yet many are waking up and the only weapon we need for victory is knowledge. For the masses to know about the trap that has been set before them. The internet was created for evil, but truth has been able to trump all that the enemy had planned. For cutting edge alternative media news, I recommend the http://www.drudgereport.com and http://www.infowars.com. I recently found very informative conference videos here: http://www.freeyourmindconference.com This is not a Christian conference. I recommend Mark Passio’s session as he unhides satanic “hidden knowledge” and Freeman Fly has a very entertaining presentation of hidden satanic symbolism in America. Every speaker has something different to chew on. I also recommend a documentary called “ENDGAME: Blueprint for Global Enslavement” on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqs9wZYmXV8
I’ve come to believe that Greek mythology is actually more than fictional legend. There are ancient texts that go into more detail of the angels that were cast down and why. There are very few witnesses in the bible, but they are there. Steve Quayle and Tom Horn are Christians who have several series regarding possible answers; namely Dark Deception and Stargates. Try this intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbP9Ubi6dak David Icke is not Christian, but testifies of a spiritual awakening that has sent him on a lifelong journey researching and trying to unveil the mysteries behind the conspiracies. Many conspiracy theorists don’t believe his reptilian alien agenda stuff. But I ask, why not?
I don’t know who William Lane Craig is and I’d just like to ask you again not to judge the author of the bible by the readers of the bible. I don’t believe the majority of what “modern Christian” writers write, I even read very little of it. The majority of the American church has covenanted with the serpent through the 501c3 incorporation for tax deductions. In general, the government owns them and they are just a store front of deception. I completely refuse to shop there.
Stephen Weinberg left out evil people doing good things. What do you call the humanitarianism of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation after you find out that the vaccines they are taking around the world under the pretense of medicine are indeed not intended to extend the life expectancy of the populations they are innoculating?
Actually it is not the bible or Christianity that has deceived the masses. This is all part of the blueprint to get God out of the minds of America, out of the world consciousness, so they can take away our sovereignty and enslave us. The western church was infiltrated by the serpent decades ago. The majority of what we know as Christianity in America is Twistianity, a mild form of satanism. Just quote enough of the bible that most can’t see the difference. Behold, I can think for myself. I still love the Bible, I love Christ and I love you.
Shalom, shalom
Terre
I saw an interesting article today called — How many of you know what the rainbow represents or is there a pot of gold at the end?? by Jeff Ellinger – He says in his article “The rainbow is produced by sanctification of white light, and all of creation conforms to the colors of the rainbow. Where there is light there is God; but the true interpretation of that light is only possible by means of faith.” This article made me think of you and your rainbow pictures. Also the comment you made about being blinded by the light. There is an intesting scripture on his web page ” Ask and it shall be given you;seek and ye shall find;knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Matt. 7:7
Richard,
I too left the official versions of Christianity for some of the same reasons.
The word behind eternal is aion or “age”. There are other words to describe on and on and on. The meaning of “age” life and “age” destruction lead to the same conclusion …”God will be all and all”. And presently already is, it being a matter of perspective.
ALP is A-potential, L-being driven, to P-mouths. ALP is supreme potential being driven into mouths. Since mouth is orifice and this last being “gate of light” or awr-fice .. it is really showing us the temple of the body is a nested set of light gates. Mouth eats a sliver of the light. Nose eats a sliver of light. Eyes eat a sliver of the light. All gates being entrances to the flow/process of how awr becomes dark or hardened again.
Ultimately there is only God .. there is no other, not one. The lesson is contained in overcoming the adversary, and his secret place is 66. Meaning the LORD is his own divisor or the foundation of heaven is hell. Cycles in the day of the LORD. Adam who contains woman inside itself .. sees outward union .. derides its inward nature due to lust of the eyes .. and falls into a sleep is divided and never wakes up. Does it say he wakes up? No. Each season in the rotation is asleep to the others. Same with the cycles of the LORD.
God is being in each and will wake all of into the new day. ALP is handed over by 10 to his 100 ears, (he listens outwardly to his hearing = hears outward union) and is QRST. He then becomes ALP the 1000 or version 2.0. Does not God burn the field of thorns and thistles? He does. Does this not produce fertilizer that re-engergizes the the green cycle of the field? Does not the eaten see through the eater’s eye? Indeed. Cannot this same eater take excrement and make it gold? He can indeed. The foundation of the fruit’s unity is the roots division.
Nothing can be lost as there is only God and only can ever be God. Since God is all knowing and all powerful to win a game where the score is 99 to 1 is still a loss considering “all”.
The word “aion” was glossed over/changed to “eternal” so that the Peterfied church (two keys being priestcraft and military power) could leverage all the money, the sex, the power for itself and its oath takers, for a populace force fed “eternal” damnation for you poor sinners in an official version Latin bible.
Have you read Bligh and Bond’s “Gematria”?
Have you read “Cipher of Genesis” by Carlo Suares?
Hi Eugene,
I agree about the meaning of “aion.” It is a sad fact that it has been poorly translated and so many people are confused.
Your comments are fascinating. I am strongly inclined towards the “Perennial Philosophy” that sees there is only one “Self” shining out through the eyes of everyone. You clearly understand the limitless power of symbols. I invite you to register on our forum – we are having many conversations in which you could contribute a lot.
http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/forum.php
As for the book, yes, I own them both, but I haven’t looked at them for many years. I am only now – in the last two weeks really – waking up to the amazing world of synchronicity and living symbols. I had an extremely powerful experience with a series of alphanumerically coded dreams back in 1990 that led to my discovery of the Bible Wheel and the Biblical holographs but then after many years as a Christian I became more conservative and less interested in such “esoterica.” But now I’ve woken up from a long slumber. Given your understanding of symbols and gematria, I think you might find it very interesting. Here’s the link:
Looking for Dumbo
Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you there!
Richard
Hi Mr. Richard,
First I just want to say thank you so much for the great work of the bible wheel and site, I’m hoping I’ll be able to buy the book soon.
So I’ve been reading up on some of the posts about why you “quit Christianity” and I guess I had a couple of questions to start.
Do you believe God is real? a Supreme Being that had the intelligence and power to create the natural universe as we know it right now?
I guess I’m confused because you seem to use the scriptures a lot, so are you still reading the bible, for you to know God better?
And do you still believe that Jesus is the bridge to help us have a right relationship with God?
Also do you and Ms. Rose have any children?
My soon to be un-husband has a lot of questions just like yours about the bible and “religion” in general and just like you he has yet to find the answers he needs for his heart, and I’m sorry you had that HORRIBLE experience with the “apoligetics” movement, until you listed it on your website I didn’t even know who the man was. I do pray that my Abba will answer your very heartfelt questions! Cause I probabley won’t be able to (grin).
Amber
Hi Amber,
I have answered your questions in a new post. You can read it here.
All the best,
Richard
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Terre,
I enjoyed your comment. Thank you for sharing your insights and I believe that the Bible does contain truths that can be discerned by you, or you remember what you already know.
I was intrigued that you began your study with Mormonism and I hope you haven’t thrown out the baby with the bath water during your investigations. If you want to see more clearly what Mormonism is, then I would recommend you read the 5 volume works by Daymon M. Smith with is well done analysis of the Cultural History of Mormonism and of the Book of Mormon. You cannot understand Mormonism unless you have read his works. He is gifted in helping the reading differentiate the baby from the bathwater in Mormonism. Also, his work not only sheds light on mormonism in a very non-apologetic way but also can help to clear up certain biblical ideas that may be very unoriginal to many Bible believers.
All in all, Daymon Smith and his work is invaluable to anyone wanting to understand the Mormons, the book of mormon and in grasping anthropological work in general, for I believe he helps the reader to understand how to look back into the past without projecting your own traditions and conclusions on history in order to understand history without bringing the present along for the journey.
Anyways, who knows if you will get this message but perhaps one day.
Greg