Morality and God

The path to heaven is through Jesus Christ. He can become as personal and real as any human relationship that we ever had. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He will never leave us or forsake us. When will we let down our masks?

Phatboy responds to me:

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Thus, by the same token, Christians have no better morality than anyone else.
To confirm this, look at the Divorce statistics.

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Actually, atheists have a better divorce rate than fundamentalists. Those who are so sure they know what god wants can't seem to follow their own rules.Once again, there are serious problems with the claim that morality and god go together.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Welcome back!! and Happy Birthday to Chuck D.

Yes that is exactly how I feel. Morality is objective. It is very interesting to note however that as a Christian one hopefully will grow in one's walk with God his heart will change to be loving and more acceptable of others. Therefore leading to a higher degree of morality. This however is not a prequisite of saving grace.
Thanx
God Bless

Do not judge God by Christians. This is unfortunately the #1 reason people do not believe. Just because the messenger is less than perfect(according to my criterion) does not mean the one who sent him is. Get to know God and Christians that believe the word and though are not perfect are trying to know God better. Not all who profess to be Christians are what they seem.
Thanx

Since you talked about Jesus' sacrifice, I'm assuming your a Bible believer.What do you do with Rom 2:6,7: "To those who by patiently continuing to do good [God will repay] glory, honor, and immortality, but to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [He will repay] indignation and wrath."Or the statement Jesus made in John that those who do good will have a resurrection of life, while those who do evil will have a resurrection of condemnation.Or, while we're at it, how about in 2 Pet 1 where there's a command to give all diligence to adding virtue to your faith, or 1 Pet 3:10ff, which says that if you would love life and see good days, then you should refrain your tongue from evil, eschew evil, and do good.The Bible seems plenty concerned with how we live.

Why not? According to Christians, God is their father. According to the Bible, if God is their Father, then he will discipline them as sons. According to the Bible, that discipline is supposed to work. Paul said he was convinced that he who had begun a good work in "you" would continue it until the day of Christ. Jude said, "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling...be glory and majesty." And then there's 1 Cor 1:8, "...who shall confirm you to the end, that you may be blamelesss." And finally, there's Jesus' statement in John 15 that every branch in him will bear fruit, or else it will be cut off and thrown into the fire.I would add that Jesus seemed prepared for both himself and his disciples to be judged by the behavior of his disciples. "They will know you are my disciples by your love," and "Father, I pray that they may be one, even as you and I are one, so that the world will know you have sent me."You say "Do not judge God by Christians." Rrhain says that atheists have a lower divorce rate than Christians (which is true). George Barna, the Christian poll-taker, says that in over 70 behaviors that he's studied, born again individuals are no different than non-Christians.All those things used to kill me. It seemed to me (and seems) that there were only three possible conclusions. One, the God of the Christians is powerless and makes empty promises. Two, the God of the Christians doesn't exist. Or three, maybe there's a true God who really sent Jesus, but the Christians aren't his disciples.Since experience has made it impossible for me not to believe in Jesus, I chose the third option.I don't think asking us not to judge the god of the Christians by the behavior of the Christians is a real option.

Well, truthlover I remember this quote from Jesus Himself as He was addressing His twelve Disciples:Matt 10:40 "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me.(from New International Version) Here is where faith really begins,namely, in tracking it to its source. I can ask myself what is my source for wisdom? What words or what voice do I listen to when I make the decisions that I make in life? Many of us who on the one hand profess ourselves as followers of Christ..who is the only path to God actually listen to our own voice of wisdom or to another human source of wisdom rather than that inner voice that we as believers know to be God. The quote from Jesus means that to really and truly be an effective spokesman for God, one needs to hear His voice rather than trying to be like the absolutist Monarchs and Popes who were so convinced that they were Gods spokesman on earth that they drove every rational mind out of the church and into the Rennaissance!

Doesn't this verse shoot down the original quote I addressed, that God shouldn't be judged by Christians. If he is to be received or not received based on receiving or not receiving his messenger, then doesn't it follow that God should indeed be judged by Christians, if Christians are his messengers?

Smitty500 responds to me:

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Do not judge God by Christians.

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Well, in the sense that god might not have anything to do with Christianity, I'd agree. But if we assume that the god that exists really is the Christian one, what other standard could we possibly use? God isn't exactly around to be his own messenger.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Fascinating and thought provoking discussion, truthlover! I am reminded of Job and I want to delve into what happened there, but before I do that, I want to focus on your statement, Keep this in mind as we visit the ancient book of Job. So we see that Job was blameless and upright, which is about as moral as a human can get. He was also rather wealthy. We don't know how moral his kids were, but note: In other words, Jobs kids were partiers. They were not clearly immoral, but they were a bit wild like we all have been.
Based on the context of God as being our Creator, I interpret Satan as a wannabe alternative. God allowed Satan to exist in rebellion only to allow an alternative reality from absolute truth to exist. This is my interpretation of the God vs Satan drama. Now...if God knows all things, why would God ask Satan where he came from? Perhaps this shows that God created Lucifer, yet Lucifer freely chose to be Satan...thus, God is asking Satan if he belonged to God and Satan said No way, man! I'm my OWN Boss! Notice how Job prays that his kids never curse God. Notice, also this: In other words Satan is saying, essentially, that if you take away a mans blessing than he will curse you!
So the story goes that God allows Job to be tested. He loses everything. This is getting quite involved, but if anyone wants, we can take the story of Job a bit further.

What I meant by this is don't use all professed believers to judge God. There are some "Christians" that say they have a relationship with Jesus Christ but really don't. In many of my Christian friends I can definately see that the Love of Christ is in them and I would encourage you to see out true believers who know Christ There is another standard, the Word of God.(Otherwise known as the Bible)
Thanx
God Bless

Smitty500 responds to me:

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There are some "Christians" that say they have a relationship with Jesus Christ but really don't.

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And how am I supposed to know that? God isn't exactly forthcoming in saying which ones are the "real" Christians.

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There is another standard, the Word of God.(Otherwise known as the Bible)

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But nobody follows that.When was the last time you made the blood sacrifice as required by Leviticus? Remember, Jesus did not come to change the law but to fulfill it and until such time as all be fulfilled, not one jot, not one tittle of the law shall change.Were you circumcised on the 8th day? Wear a garment of two fibers? Eat shellfish?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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Do not judge God by Christians. This is unfortunately the #1 reason people do not believe. Just because the messenger is less than perfect(according to my criterion) does not mean the one who sent him is.

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How do you know how great the original source is if you only have what an imperfect human describes it as.Its kind of like sending binary code over a network line. God is the packet of code, the repeater is Jesus/prophets, and we are the routers/switches. (The latency in the line is 'human confusion, and human translation).If this original packet of code (e.g God) is sent, and during this transmission, something goes wrong and the code gets a little messed up(latency), the code can still be deciphered, but its not EXACTLY what the original code was(it could be off by a 0 or 1). The repeater takes the 'new flawed' code and sends it to the switches (Humans).So if you catch my analogy, there is no valid and/or logical premise for believing in a God, other than what is presented to us subjectively by another human. This applies to every religion that has a god as the first source or creator. So if you think going around preaching the gospel to educated people who think logically and soundly will convert them, your gonna need to reconsider your approach. Redneck theology only works in the backwoods of Missouri.Cheers,
Dextar

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There are some "Christians" that say they have a relationship with Jesus Christ but really don't. In many of my Christian friends I can definately see that the Love of Christ is in them and I would encourage you to see out true believers who know Christ There is another standard, the Word of God.(Otherwise known as the Bible)

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Who are you to judge who does and doesn't have a 'text-book' relationship with Jesus? Is there a stereotypical christian? I would have figured this would go against everything Christianity stands for. Also, from what I was taught in sunday school many years ago is that the "Love of Christ" is in EVERYONE. Its up to that person to put faith in it or not. How do you determine that person "X" has the love of christ, but person "Y" does not?Seems like your taking your beliefs a little to far, almost to the point of narcisism.