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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: |
It has NOTHING in common with ISIS and that comparison is false and very dangerous.
ISIS kills people willy nilly for no reason whatever except that they aren't Muslims. God in the Old Testament, in the time of the theocracy of Israel, enacteds the death penalty for specific reasons, for specific sins and crimes, such as child sacrifice which was the practice of the Canaanites, gives plenty of warning and then acts. Stoning was the death penalty for individual Israelities convicted of a capital crime. Your comparison is dangerous and evil. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Lately Ive been studying the opposing views than my own. I ordered a book by Bart Ehrman. Misquoting Jesus and am forcing myself to confront it. ... I'm rereading an orthodox classic that shows how the church has been compromised by the rejection of Bible inerrancy and accommodation to the world on history and science, and calls us back to inerrancy. This is Francis Schaeffer's The Great Evangelical Disaster written in 1984. Perhaps you feel you understand this perspective already, or maybe you've even read the book, but if not I'd recommend it as antidote to the heretics like Bart Ehrman. Unfortunately what Shaeffer was warning about has only become much worse since then.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Heard a couple minutes of him preaching. What's the point though? You say nothing about the book I mentioned.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What a coincidence then, since there was obviously no stage trick that Phat experienced. This may seem obvious to you, despite your not having been there, but it is far from obvious to me. Based on what? A bunch of young guys coming back late from a church gathering staging this thing? For whom? Phat's report shows no such nonsense.
I also heard a chipmunky voice once, commenting on my belief in Jesus Christ, but it didn't have an echoing quality. It sounded like it came from the air a few feet from me. The echoing quality seems to be a feature of the "dual voice" effect. What you describe there is something else entirely. It sounds indistinguishable from simple voice-throwing. I was alone in my apartment at night. Who would be throwing the voice? And why? I was silently praying, the chipmunky voice commented on that fact.
Another time I heard a deeper voice that did echo, like it was inside a steel drum. The "voice from inside a box" trick is yet another well-worn ventriloquist's trick. You'd have to imagine a ventriloquist following me around and hanging around outside my place, a duplex I was living in years after the event mentioned above. I'd have heard footsteps outside. Again it was at night and I was praying. The voice mentioned a woman all the churches were already praying for, a popular Christian woman who was discovered to have cancer while pregnant with her fifth child. The voice simply said her name. Your theory is just impossible. This was a voice from another realm, not from a ventriloquist standing outside. Yes I was alone in both cases. I would have mentioned the presence of anyone else. I'm guessing that the voices wouldn't have been audible to anyone else, but I have no way of knowing. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It's SO hard for me to get out of here for good. I really want to, I have other things I want to do with my time. But there's always something I want to come back and respond to.
..tell me to quit wasting my time reading what they call doctrines of demons. I reply that I can't help it...it is my nature to question rather than ignore. I would never make a good witness for believers and church folk, but I think that God may someday want me to reach the ones who are unimpressed by scripture. Because of course you yourself are "unimpressed with scripture." You've said this and so much else that puts you at odds with orthodox traditional Christianity, and members of your own church challenge you on it frequently, as you've told us many times. Therefore, what I keep thinking is that your church should put you through an official disciplinary procedure in which they lay down the principles of the faith that you disbelieve and challenge, ask you to repent and then excommunicate you when you don't. Churches really should not keep people in their congregations who reject any part of the doctrinal truths they stand by, because it is extremely important to keep "the unity of the faith" and that means holding to the same doctrines as a body, which include Bible inerrancy in any truly orthodox church. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Phat does not present himself as at all open to the tenet of Biblical inerrancy. If he's searching it's gone on a very long time and he's very aware of the different positions on the subject. He's rejected the traditional view in pretty certain terms. Disciplinary procedures would give opportunity to consider the various positions very carefully and come to a clear conclusion.
He has clearly stated that he disagrees with the many people in his church, including the pastor, who have many times told him he is in the wrong. But they don't do anything about it. He's reported many instances of their attempts to set him straight, which he refuses to accept. He's had plenty of time for any searching. He understands the position of the church. It sounds like they are a traditional church but it's possible they aren't since their overall views haven't been stated. But if they are then they are in the wrong not to discipline him and come to a clear decision about his position of disagreement with them. Christianity is a body of knowledge. If you don't believe in important elements of the faith then you shouldn't continue in a fellowship with people who do. I know of three disciplinary procedures in two churches. In two of them the person repented and stayed, one repenting of adultery and being reconciled to his wife, and the other I'm not as clear about but I think it was the person accepting some kind of treatment for drug addiction or something like that. In another case the woman left before the public part of the disciplinary procedure came up, after private sessions with the elders in which she refused to repent. These were personal sins, not disagreements with doctrine, but a really strong objection to doctrine such as Phat expresses should be treated similarly. He is at odds with the church's confessional faith held by many others as he has quoted them, and even the pastor. This can only make for chaos in a church. Sure he's welcome to go on searching as he desires... somewhere else. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yes it is a body of dogma, which is a body of knowledge, in the case of Christianity, facts and principles given by the revelation of the Bible. The knowledge can be refined, but it can't be contradicted.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
A body of knowledge or dogma has nothing to do with free will. Truth is truth. Free will applies to personal choices of many kinds but not the right to argue with the body of knowledge revealed by God. If you have a different opinion then you don't belong with those who subscribe to the particular body of knowledge, you belong with others who agree with you..
I'm sure you'd all agree that you can't change an established scientific theory to suit yourself, so why should you think a person could change an established revelation from God to suit oneself? If Jesus rose from the dead according to the body of dogma or knowledge, and you think he didn't, you belong somewhere other than the church that affirms that he rose from the dead. Same if the church affirms Biblical inerrancy and you don't. You don't belong in that church. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Well it's you who are defining the "reality" and if it disagrees with the church's established Confession of Faith which is a definition of reality also, then you don't belong in that church. It is a Confession of Faith that spells out the dogma or body of knowledge for an entire denomination. If you don't like it go start your own denomination.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It's you defining the "objective observation" and traditional Christians find your definition to be false. Sure we can have our own definition of reality. The only question is which one is really the definition of reality. I accept a certain definition handed down through history. You are free to disagree but you have to start your own denomination since you disagree with the traditional understanding. I'll stick to mine, you are welcome to yours. Enjoy.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
funny since you feel free to change the Bible to suit yourself. Too bad I have to keep correcting such a false accusation. No, my view of the Bible is the orthodox traditional view. I rely on orthodox traditional teachers and preachers, theologians and apologists, to keep me on track.
It’s also funny since science doesn’t require you to believe even established theories. You can’t pretend it says something other than it does, but you can disagree with it. Not if you're a scientist in that field you can't if you expect to get your work recognized. Of course I don't have that handicap. I feel completely free to disagree with the Theory of Evolution and Old Earthism, but just as with Biblical dogma as I've been explaining, that puts me outside the orthodox community of those who subscribe to them. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Glad to hear about the successful surgery. Why did you need it? That is, what was wrong with your eye?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Oh don't be such a silly pedant. Of course scientific theories can be overturned under the right circumstances, but not by the average scientist doing average work within the field. And of course no analogy is going to be perfect since the Bible is the only absolute inerrant truth that exists.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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I completely understand being skeptical of the idea of demons but the facts as Phat has described them, and I as well, aren't just dismissable by the kinds of answers we've been getting. Did he lie about the blood red eyes? Can multiple voices really be "thrown" by a single voice? Would some kid coming back from a youth group meeting just happen to be able to throw his voice like that, and the other kid just happen to pretend to be demon possessed and make his eyes look red? And never break the act? And was Phat lying about the feeling of electricity in the air before he even went down to where the other boys were?
My first encounter with the idea that demons might be real happened about a decade before I became a Christian. A perfectly respectable literary critic in a literary journal, reviewing a German poet who referred to demonic activity of some sort, simply said he wasn't entirely sure such things weren't a reality. I was severely startled by that statement. I think I actually jumped in my chair. But that was the only time before I started dabbling in the occult about a year before I became a Christian that I myself had any clue that such things might be real. And I didn't take any particular position on it when I read the literary critic's comment, didn't assume the guy was wrong, didn't have any need to try to prove him wrong, or right, was just stunned at the idea anyone could think as he did and left it at that. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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I heard TWO voices on two different occasions years apart. I described them both. I was alone in both cases. They both said articulate things.
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