My Beliefs- GDR

I for one am delighted to hear your beliefs. I will be asking you lots of questions...please bear with me. First off, let me ask: In your opinion, are beliefs that people hold a product of their culture? In other words, if you or I were born in India, would our chances of being Christians diminish significantly? I believe that Jesus Christ is Gods character and transcends cultures. Comment? I agree. I believe that God exists and would exist even if no human on the planet believed in Him. I believe that the premise of Jesus Christ being Gods character in human form sent to humanity is also plausible. I agree. Without trying to sound too religious, scripture speaks for itself on this: John 3:16-21(NIV)--

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16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." Seems logical and reasonable to me. Couldn't have said it better myself. This series is very well done. Atheists have their own videos, but to me they are no more compelling than this series. Part 1 is above. I agree, and add that these authors were quite spiritual men and had no selfish agenda...apart from educating the Jews on what it was they had missed. I agree, and believe that the Bible is in summation a story of the character of Jesus Christ..introduced to History as He stepped out of eternity into time and dwelt among us. I agree, and believe that Paul had the indwelling Holy Spirit...something that not every human automatically has...and that even though every character in the Bible was human, only Jesus had the insight to avoid sin. Nowhere can it be suggested that Jesus ever sinned...but im sure the rest of them did, as do we. Yes, we cant say that it is objective...only fellow believers can say that it is objective within the context of their belief. Taken sociologically, it is all subjective. God foreknew that humans would have limited imagination and intelligence..as well as certain inborn predispositions...and I believe that He communed with us from that perspective. In some ways yes. In other ways, no. I believe that we have potential to a foreknown degree and that we are expected to try and do our best. Only then will God revisit us and finalize our eternal destiny. Explain this concept further, if you will. All I can say is that if malignant supernatural beings exist, their lone purpose is to keep people from believing the living truth. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am unafraid to question the truth, but I have not doubted it..nor Him...whom I consider to essentially be "it". Lets talk, GDR! I always like discussing faith with others, and it is nice to have a fellow Christian to talk with. I have some simple questions to get this discussion going. First, I'll let you expound further.

Perhaps that explains the near inevitability of wars(and rumors of wars). Its not simply inequality and survival of the fittest. Its the enemy, faced with the realization that he,she,it,(us?) is losing...causing wars to try and kill the ever growing faith in goodness.The concept of spiritual war...and war in general...shows me that something is not quite right.We humans (unbelievers also) need to ask ourselves if we are fighting anything and what that is. We also need to ask ourselves if it is possible to have a global communion of love and acceptance without Jesus Christ.(The Spiritual head of it.) I think not...but of course critics would say I am biased towards religion and/or belief. Guilty. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

To me, it all boils down to belief in human wisdom and rationalization versus belief in God...admittedly irrational for an educated mindset.You say you see no need to believe in " such a non entity...(a concept at best)" and that humans can do fine without it.I think you have answered this before, but would you be willing to accept such a concept if such a concept became alive, personal, and evident?(assuming that He hypothetically could.)Would you surrender your final answer and accept the evidence?(and before you answer, im guessing that you will say "I see no evidence and have asked for it before!! Thus .....) right?So what I'm saying is do you honestly think you could accept Him before the evidence presented itself? As in a hypothetical or shall I say conditional acceptance.You may then resort to saying you see no need for such a hypothetical, in which case I would claim that you decided to reject a potential actuality by asserting your human wisdom as the final arbiter of said belief...(am I being to obtuse with words?)Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

These days, humans make "laws" concerning morality, social equality, and ethics using science. In my opinion, humans are still desiring to maintain control, only now instead of interpreting Gods law their own way they simply have eliminated God from the equation entirely...justifying societal control on the idea that we(humanity) are our own authority. Revelation talks of Jesus Christ who was, is, and will be. Past, Present, and Future. It also mentions a Beast..(a literal and/or archetypical "villain" who once was, now is not and yet is for those whose names are not written in the book of life. Jesus was. There is no indication of a Beginning. The Beast Once was which indicates a created (or finite) part of time. Look at God and Job:

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Job 1:1-- In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job.(...)Job 1:3--He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

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We read of the trial Job faced. We read of how he questions the One who was, is and always will be. He even curses his own finite sliver of time...from his birth to his death.Job 3:3, 3:11 among other places.The problem with human wisdom is that it attempts to frame every issue as if it were we that were before the issue and after the issue.Human wisdom is but a finite sliver of time. Humans themselves are but a finite sliver of time(and space) and yet we dare to frame/and or conceive of all of it. The vastness...the infinite.Job is wise enough to know that finite human wisdom won't get him out of this trial.

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Job 6:13--Do I have any power to help myself, now that success has been driven from me?

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He is wise enough to know that even his friends cant answer his questions, well meaning though they may be. They have finite ability to reason.

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Job 6:24-25--Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong.
25 How painful are honest words! But what do your arguments prove?

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Job is hurting, and through the finite wisdom of his friends he also questions(yet never curses) God.

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Job 7:7-- Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

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Job knows his life is finite. His wisdom is finite. His sliver of time has, in his mind, been cursed.Job also knows that God is more powerful than he is. The fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. Modern man seems to have lost this concept.So....getting back to this concept of time..... Look again at Job.

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Job 11:7-9 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
8 They are higher than the heavens-what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave-what can you know? 9 Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.

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Whether it be eons, thousands of years, hundreds of miles or billions or trillions of miles, the concept is that God is greater. His limits are limitless. His wisdom exceeds our wisdom. Our wisdom and conceptualization is and always will be finite.

I choose to believe that there is more wisdom overall on the planet now there was then.The source of wisdom is, in my belief, God.

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Isa 11:2-3
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him--
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD--
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

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jar may (i say may ) argue that I am speaking of source versus content and that source is irrelevant. I would disagree, claiming that content is source.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Im checking to see if Faith did her homework...

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Matt 1:20-2:1-NIV

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20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

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22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"-which means, "God with us."

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24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

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Not bad, Faith ... The meaning of the last name is also important. Christ means "the anointed One". Critics claim that any of us could be anointed, but as the officials of that time (who were not followers) said,

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The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man!

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See all translations. Hell was created not for sinful humans but for fallen angels who initially chose to rebel from Communion with God. Humans only end up in hell due to our own choice to deny Jesus Christ and to follow an unclean spirit (or even our own fallible human wisdom that refuses to acknowledge Jesus Christ for who He is. ) People are never sent to hell. They make the choice. Humans are not punished for having free will. Humans choose to punish themselves through willful ignorance...denying a loving man in which no fault was found. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Why must we see it? Human wisdom is limited to a miniscule time and space. Our imagination (and even our evidence) does not contain the known universe. Science never uses terms such as ludicrous. This is your own personal bias against the idea of God. The fact is, if you are honest with yourself, you dont even doubt that you are right. You do doubt that you are wrong, however. Totally your perspective. Far from a unanimous belief. You've been hanging out with too many of your own kind. You will be humbled, and the smugness will disappear. My advice? Don't rule it out and stay humble.

So whats your point? Would you even want to consider the verses as addressed to you personally? If they were, would you consider following their advice or would you naturally rebel?? Does your concept of "universal human desire" have room in it for Jesus Christ?

I have personally noticed several things about my perception of time.1) The older you are, the faster it seems to go in some sense, and yet the slower it goes in other senses.This is logical. For a five year old, summer seems to last a long time, as does winter. Reason? I fgure that 3 months is a bigger percentage of a five year olds lifetime than it is of a 60 year old.So in that sense time speeds up as one gets older. Grandma sees the grandkids and exclaims how it was "only yesterday they were so small!"The years go by as if in a blur. Time is measured not in days or months, but in events...like family vacations.Yet in other ways, past events still seem as vivid in some minds as present events. It can be said that some folks "live" in the past. For them, time stopped at one point...perhaps years ago...and they see it as yesterday.

In my opinion, God(Creator of all seen and unseen) will always be beyond human understanding. We could ask the question as to whether God and/or Jesus would ever be better understood through science alone.

I would tend to see it more as "Human Wisdom" fills in the gap. This is true to a degree, but I believe that human wisdom will ever erase the reality of, never-mind the need of God.I believe that God actually gives men wisdom. Obviously I cant support the idea that the written word was the living word, except through lengthy observation and acquaintance with modern day Solomons. Also, were Solomon alive today in today's context he would not simply sit on some mountain top like an aloof sage. He would interact with modern education and media to a degree...but I believe that the root of his wisdom would come about through his relationship with God on a daily basis.

I'll tell you one thing. science based counseling wont ease their hurt any quicker, if at all.

Keep in mind that the forum is Faith/Belief. You do have a valid point, though.

I challenge the idea that 85 is always science and that 25 is always faith. This may well be true in the science of evolution vs biblical creationism, but the Bible has some deep insights into human nature that science is only now beginning to catch up with.Lets take the science behind addiction.

Again--Lets take the science behind addiction.Look at Romans.. 7:15 They now know that addictions cannot be easily stopped. The reason is because the brain actually changes. Certain neural pathways are laid down and reinforced...so that to attempt to stop in the middle of the loop is next to impossible.Possible...yet not easy at all. Blindingly obvious? The addictions experts are only now catching up to explaining it in a way other than sin.Not only do we generate neurological pathways of behavior in our brain, we become addicted to our own brain chemicals. Just as an addict must get high off an external chemical, we too can be addicted to a behavioral strategy which releases the sought after chemicals. If our behavior is of a positive nature then we never worry about it. But, if the behavior is undesirable, we may try all manner of interventions to change it only to find we’re replacing it with something else. Oddly, the Biblical passage essentially says the same thing. We replace sanity with sin...even when we know better.