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Author Topic:   Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 738 of 1677 (842563)
11-02-2018 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 736 by Straggler
11-01-2018 5:21 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
In my view anyone perceiving commands from a God is far more likely to be suffering some form of psychosis than actually receiving commands from god.
God gave commands to His selected spokesmen in the OT, such as Abraham, Moses, various of the Prophets. To the Prophets he mostly gave revelation, though, not commands. HOW these messages from God came to these people is not at all clear. They may have received them silently in their spirit rather than audibly. This would require a thorough study of all such instances. Samuel seems to have actually heard God's voice as a child though, since he thought it was the priest Eli calling him. Inany case, after the Old Testament canon was closed god's communications seem to have been through the human spirit, which is more like an impression that is felt than a voice that is heard. But you have made me curious to find out more about this if I can.
But the likes of Faith and Phat etc. Seem to think that they do have subjective experiences of God and that people have communed with God and received instructions from him, so I wondered what they’d make of God apparently instructing them to kill people.
Just to state it again, we can be very sure God would never command anyone to kill anybody after Christ has come. Sometimes Christians think God has told them to do something sinful, like get a divorce, and while I believe they must have received some kind of communication that convinced them of this we can know for sure that was not God who communicated to them since He would not contradict scripture. the Early Church received all kinds of prophecies from God, although some people were identified as hearing from Satan instead. That's the quandary for people who have had our spirits regenerated: we are now open to receiving demonic communications and in some cases we have to know the Bible well to reject them. I think we all do hear from God in our consciences though, making us aware of our sins and that sort of thing, and sometimes impressions about our calling. He is understood, however, to communicate with us most reliably through the Word itself as we recognize passages at a given time as speaking directly to us.
Faiths answer seems to be that God used to do that in Old Testament times but doesn’t since the New Testament came into being (the exact cutover date for God’s change of tack is unclear to me)
The Old Testament was closed at the end of the book of Malachi, and then there were four hundred years before Christ came. Pretty clear cutoff point I'd say.
so she’d ignore it as psychosis. Which I find slightly ironic but reassuring that some sort of sanity has prevailed despite the rather tortured justification for it.
Actually I believe that people do hear from spiritual beings, i.e. demons, even unbelievers do. They do speak audibly to the person's mind, and they may give commands to do evil or dangerous things. These are people who don't know or believe the Bible and truly ARE psychotic, mentally deranged, but they are open to real voices as a result of their mental state. Demons may also try to mislead Christians as I say above but solid grounding in the Word is a protection against them. Anything that contradicts the Word is not of God. The Charismatic Movement, unfortunately, has confused these things so that they accept all kinds of "spiritual" communications as from God when they are not.
Of course all this is completely crazy to you. Oh well.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 736 by Straggler, posted 11-01-2018 5:21 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 740 by Straggler, posted 11-03-2018 1:15 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 739 of 1677 (842564)
11-02-2018 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 734 by Percy
10-31-2018 3:31 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
People who think the Bible is fictional have no sense whatever of what it takes to write fiction, no sense of the different qualities of fiction versus reportage etc.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 734 by Percy, posted 10-31-2018 3:31 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 741 by Percy, posted 11-03-2018 8:18 AM Faith has replied
 Message 754 by ringo, posted 11-04-2018 2:14 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 743 of 1677 (842608)
11-03-2018 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 741 by Percy
11-03-2018 8:18 AM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
The fact that Luke the writer of Acts says Ananias lied and that Peter is quoted saying he lied are the evidence.
Lying to the Holy Spirit is no minor offense.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 741 by Percy, posted 11-03-2018 8:18 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 753 by Percy, posted 11-04-2018 12:59 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 744 of 1677 (842610)
11-03-2018 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 740 by Straggler
11-03-2018 1:15 AM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
Of course all this is completely crazy to you.
Yes. I am afraid so. Your post has left me in a state of open mouthed bewilderment as to how people can believe that stuff in this day and age.
I understand. I used to have the same view (although I was more curious about what led people to claim such things than accusatory of them). Sometime in the seventies I ran across an essay in a literary journal about a German writer that mentioned demon possession as once believed to be the cause of mental disorders, and I was as startled as you are -- "state of open mouthed bewilderment" might say it for me -- when the essayist said he thought there might be some truth to that old idea. I think I actually sort of jumped when I read that it was so startling. A literary critic "in this day and age" saying demonic possession might be real?
Then somewhere around that time I was having anxiety attacks and decided to check out Transcendental Meditation which was getting big in those days and promised a "scientific" way to relieve stress and find peace. To believe that you have to ignore the fact that you are asked to bring an "offering" to Maharishi and lay it in front of his portrait, but anyway I was desperate enough to see if they had something to offer. They gave me a mantra and told me how to practice it. It was on one of my first uses of it that I had this experience of something like curtains parting before my eyes behind which was a vast landscape with a city in the far distance. it was as real as being transported into that landscape. And it scared me to death. I jumped up and never practiced TM again. My response might have been unusual, I suppose many would have been intrigued and wanted to have more of such experiences. I didn't think of it in any relation to demons until a decade or so later when I became a Christian and ran across the explanation that mantras are the names of Hindu "gods" (demons) -- they have millions of them -- which you summon by using the name as a mantra. Science indeed.
So there are two pre-Christian experiences I had that startled me with the suggestion of another reality that was completely foreign to my thinking at the time.
So after i became a Christian I did a lot of reading up on these things and became convinced that demons are indeed real invisible beings that really can communicate with human beings,* but aren't very interested in doing so when it serves their purposes better to have everybody convinced they don't exist. But they seem to be more and more willing to be exposed in the last few decades, though there are still a lot of people who treat people who have such experiences as crazy. I do think, however, that demon possession may very well explain some kinds of mental illness, especially where voices are heard giving commands.
But when God communicates with us it is usually subtle impressions in our spirit and not audible, even the kind of voice that is heard only inside one's head, and since I have heard such a voice I know the difference.
abe: *I should add that they need "permission" of some sort to communicate with us, which sin can offer them: enough unrepented sin can invite them to harass a person or even possess the person, and they may become the cause of criminal behavior too. Meditation practices in various religions can bring a person into contact with the spiritual realms of the demons too and some of the practices actually invite them to teach and guide the person. The Charismatic Movement in Christianity also invites such demonic influences without being aware this is what is happening.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 740 by Straggler, posted 11-03-2018 1:15 AM Straggler has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 745 of 1677 (842612)
11-03-2018 4:38 PM
Reply to: Message 742 by GDR
11-03-2018 1:21 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
The Bible accounts present themselves as simple factual accounts of real events. "Bible believers" simply believe those accounts as written, trusting the writers' honesty and trusting the Church's teaching that the Bible is God's word. We want as much background information as we can get about all of it, but only in order to put the accounts into historical context, not to question those accounts. Where there are seeming discrepancies we either see how they can be reconciled or we leave them to be resolved at some later time.
This is the way the Bible should be read, and this is the only way anyone can get out of it what is there to get. If you keep second-guessing it, finding metaphors instead of the factual reality the writers obviously intended, or questioning the thinking of the writers to suggest that what they thought they were saying isn't really what they were saying, questioning their very existence too, and so on and so forth, you invent your own religion and will never understand the God-given message it contains for us.
There is no need to explain away the Ananias and Sapphira account. Luke says they lied about how much of their proceeds they were giving to the church, and reports that Peter said the same thing and emphasized the severity of the offense of lying to the Holy Spirit, which explains why they both suddenly died. No other explanations are needed, it's all there and you just fool yourself by refusing to accept it as written.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 742 by GDR, posted 11-03-2018 1:21 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 746 by GDR, posted 11-03-2018 5:09 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 747 of 1677 (842615)
11-03-2018 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 746 by GDR
11-03-2018 5:09 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
It is only when you leave it to speak for itself and don't impose your own opinions on it that you have any chance of understanding it. It tells you who God is instead of you telling it the kind of God you want, which is what you do. God is love, there is no deviation from that fact about God, therefore what you see as evil in descriptions of God is not evil, it's love because it's justice and you are totally blind to it. You impose your own crabbed fleshly idea of "love" on the Bible. Worse than that you do what so many here do, and so many others in the world these days, you make evil good when you call justice evil, as so many do who make the death penalty evil, and people who define "love" in terms that justify sin.
And of course we are to leave some discrepancies unresolved. This is what faith has to do if we regard the Bible as God's word. We simply know that there is a resolution and we would be in the wrong to accuse God of contradicting Himself. That's the humble position, GDR, to refrain from imposing our own judgments on God's word.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 746 by GDR, posted 11-03-2018 5:09 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 748 by GDR, posted 11-03-2018 5:45 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 757 of 1677 (842665)
11-04-2018 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 754 by ringo
11-04-2018 2:14 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
That's ironic coming from somebody who thinks a talking snake is "reportage".
You might want to look up the word "ironic."
I do believe there was a snake that communicated to Eve. Simple factual reporting.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 754 by ringo, posted 11-04-2018 2:14 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 768 by ringo, posted 11-05-2018 11:07 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 758 of 1677 (842666)
11-04-2018 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 756 by GDR
11-04-2018 4:45 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
I thought you merely chose to base your Christian beliefs on what you think the Bible says about Jesus as The Word of God. But there's a lot more you change to suit yourself than that, isn't there? The passage says clearly that Ananias and Sapphira simply fell down and died, nobody killed them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 756 by GDR, posted 11-04-2018 4:45 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 759 by GDR, posted 11-04-2018 4:53 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 760 of 1677 (842668)
11-04-2018 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 753 by Percy
11-04-2018 12:59 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
Luke and Peter are separate individuals, both referred to in other books of the New Testament.
I don't need to have Ananias tell a lie, it is quite enough that Luke reports it and Peter chides him for it.
Your horrible impression of the early church is ridiculous. First of all it's based on your refusal to accept what the account actually says, that lying to the Holy Spirit is the reason the couple died. Second their death is said to have had a salutary effect on the church in that it increased fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.
A and S lied to God in the context of claiming to be believers during the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ. Other people lie to God all the time. If you don't repent you'll eventually have to see that it's not a trivial sin.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 753 by Percy, posted 11-04-2018 12:59 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 761 by PaulK, posted 11-04-2018 5:03 PM Faith has replied
 Message 769 by ringo, posted 11-05-2018 11:12 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 770 by Percy, posted 11-05-2018 12:16 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 762 of 1677 (842670)
11-04-2018 5:05 PM
Reply to: Message 748 by GDR
11-03-2018 5:45 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
It is only when you leave it to speak for itself and don't impose your own opinions on it that you have any chance of understanding it.
I know you can't see this Faith, but you are imposing your opinions on the Bible. It is your opinion that the Bible is inerrant and you use that opinion to understand scripture. It is you who are doing what you accuse me of doing.
You're right that I can't see this at all. Very strange that an attitude of refusing to impose one's own will on the text is interpreted as imposing one's will on the text.
I understand scripture based on the opinion that the Bible is correct when it says that it is Jesus that is the Word of God. The bible says that the Word was made flesh not a book. Therefore I understand scripture by reading it through the lens of the teachings of Jesus.
Odd that you can think there's anything legitimate about that approach to scripture. Odd that you can so easily ignore that the scripture itself identifies itself as "God breathed." Odd that you don't care a whit what the main teachers of the Church have to say about it, you are willing to put your own opinion above theirs. Odd that you think you believe in God but haven't a shred of fear of God in any of your dealings with His Word.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
There's no justice in your attitude to the scripture; there is no love either since you don't mind preaching your own opinion to other people who might be misled by it, and you certainly haven't the slightest humility toward the history of Christianity. the majoirty of believers, or God Himself. With Whom you most certainly do not "walk."
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 748 by GDR, posted 11-03-2018 5:45 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 763 of 1677 (842671)
11-04-2018 5:10 PM
Reply to: Message 761 by PaulK
11-04-2018 5:03 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
You've never heard of One and Two Peter? You've never noticed him being quoted in the gospels?
And do you really need me to reword this to say that I don't need the Book of Acts to REPORT Ananias telling a lie etc etc etc.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 761 by PaulK, posted 11-04-2018 5:03 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 765 by PaulK, posted 11-05-2018 12:33 AM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 771 of 1677 (842733)
11-06-2018 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 770 by Percy
11-05-2018 12:16 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
Luke and Peter are separate individuals, both referred to in other books of the New Testament.
I don't need to have Ananias tell a lie, it is quite enough that Luke reports it and Peter chides him for it.
This isn't relevant. You claimed that both Luke and Peter claimed that Ananias had lied to the Holy Spirit. The reality is that only Luke claims that Peter said Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit. You have nothing from Peter about whether he ever said anything like that or not. You have only one person, Luke, asserting something, not two.
Interesting how adamant you can be about a biased opinion of your own against the whole history of Christianity. Luke is a real person, the author of Acts, he is reporting on an incident involving the real people Ananias and Sapphira, who appear nowhere else in the New Testament, and Peter the apostle, who appears in lots of places. All are real people, the incident is real etc etc etc. So it's my opinion against yours, but really it's the opinion of the Church through the ages against yours.
Again, Luke says they lied, Peter asks Ananias why he lied since he didn't have to since he had the right to dispense of his property however he wanted to, I don't need Luke to quote Ananias speaking the lie, then Luke says they fell down dead, nobody killed them, and a reasonable reading of scripture simply takes what it says at face value.
I hear the boogey man has first dibs on me.
Gosh that's actually cute.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 770 by Percy, posted 11-05-2018 12:16 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 773 by PaulK, posted 11-06-2018 3:21 PM Faith has replied
 Message 776 by Percy, posted 11-06-2018 7:25 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 772 of 1677 (842736)
11-06-2018 3:19 PM
Reply to: Message 768 by ringo
11-05-2018 11:07 AM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
You're being dishonest. If you saw a newspaper article about a talking snake you wouldn't believe it for a second.
The Bible is not a newspaper.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 768 by ringo, posted 11-05-2018 11:07 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 777 by ringo, posted 11-07-2018 11:10 AM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 774 of 1677 (842738)
11-06-2018 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 773 by PaulK
11-06-2018 3:21 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
The part you quoted isn’t a biased opinion, it is a fact. You have the Book of Acts claiming that Peter accused Ananias of lying. You do not have any statement from Peter on the matter.
Don't be silly, I have Luke's account of what he said to Ananias, and that is all that is needed or nobody could ever believe anything written about what someone said ever.
The idea that Ananias' having control of his property could have anything to do with giving an excuse to hold any of it back or not is too absurd to even consider. Get real. Peter's mentioning it is to point out that he had lied to no purpose at all except his own pride.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 773 by PaulK, posted 11-06-2018 3:21 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 775 by PaulK, posted 11-06-2018 3:39 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 778 of 1677 (842824)
11-08-2018 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 776 by Percy
11-06-2018 7:25 PM


Re: Giving It All Up and Urging Everyone To Do Likewise
Interesting how adamant you can be about a biased opinion of your own against the whole history of Christianity.
This is the "Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong" fallacy, plus I doubt "the whole history of Christianity" is of one mind on this point.
Don't think you can claim this fallacy and people here don't get it right about fallacies most of the time anyway. You can't compare Frenchmen to believers taught in a theology sharing an opinion. Really stupid comparison.
Yah, my bad: to me the whole history of Christianity means true Christianity which basically means the theological positions held by the followers of the Protestant Reformation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 776 by Percy, posted 11-06-2018 7:25 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 779 by Percy, posted 11-08-2018 7:24 PM Faith has replied

  
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