Salvation by faith and works : intellectually ridiculous?

Moral rules have no deductive ground and so can only be true by a fluke, not as a result of a rational process. If morality is subjective, it's some ideas we just made up--and is no proof of anything. What we think is good or bad may not be good or bad. So there's no point in us proclaiming that God could be either good or bad, since we don't know good from bad. All we know are our subjective preferences.

You really are confused. I never said this was accurate, you were the one who said He was crucified through the wrist, I presented the verse to contradict your assertion. Are you saying that the evangelist was incorrect when he said Jesus was cricified through the hands? Quite straightforward.We don't know what happened at His trial because the reports we have are inaccurate.Now, if you wish to say that the doubting Thomas incident is inaccurate then that's up to you.I am just wondering why you are ignoring the Gospels.Brian.

oh right. clearly the 30mph sign is just to tell us that we are incapable of following it. and if you tell the police officer that you believe in him and that he died on the cross to save you, he won't give you a ticket.no. laws are given to us to be followed. the bible gives us rules in order that we should follow them. we may have trouble. we may fail. but the point is in trying. the point is in crying out to abba when you fail and when you are weak. but that doesn't excuse you from following the rules.

God was certainly feeling very guitly about something, why else would He try to make up for all the evil deeds He has done?

here you go, genius.Flaying - Wikipedia
Flaying of humans is used as a method of torture or execution, depending on how much of the skin is removed. This article deals with flaying in the sense of torture and execution. This is often referred to as "flaying alive". There are also records of people flayed after death, generally as a means of debasing the corpse of a prominent enemy or criminal, sometimes related to religious beliefs (e.g. to deny an afterlife); sometimes the skin is used, again for deterrence, magical uses etc. (cf. scalping).the practice of cutting off all the skin and sometimes flesh of a living person. i'd say that's a bit worse than crucifixion.oh and there was another one i learned about once but i can't remember what it was called so i can't google it. it was used back in ancient mesopotamia if i recall. they'd lay you down and put a boat over your body with your head sticking out so they could feed you. but you'd be tied down and have to waste where you lay. eventually, the dark and moisture under the boat would rot your skin and the bugs and rodents coming to eat your waste would eat you as well. and they fed you until you died.

Whats do you reckon would have been the everyday Hebrew word for the section of the body that joins the hand to the wrist? The bit through which the median nerve passes.Without googling it, what is the common English name today? Me I call that area my wrist.As I understand it, nailing a person through their hand would result in the nail ripping through fairly boneless, insubstantial hand flesh and working its way up and out between the bones of the fingers. This due to the weight of a body ill-supported by knees nailed in the crooked position.You can try it at home Brian. Stand with your own knees in the crooked position and tell us how long before they start to tremble. 5 minutes? 10? The support under the feet was sloped downwards too. So as to ensure that the victim had to push against the nails pinning him there (presumably these were as strategically placed for maximum pain as those through the wrists)Placing a nail through soft flesh in the joint between wrist and hand you hang the victim by a support which is well capable of taking a mans weight. And maximise pain for much longer than you would were people with ripped-through hands to continually fall off their crosses.I read the bible. It doesn't clash with my knowledge as an engineer From Wiki on crucifixionThis message has been edited by iano, 19-Apr-2006 09:07 PM

I didn't know He did that.

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"The whole of life goes like this. We seek repose by battling against difficulties, and once they are overcome, repose becomes unbearable because of the boredom it engenders."--Pascal

Iano, you've missed the point entirely. When we pray we say Do you notice that? OUR Father. I'm thinking of God OUR Father, OUR Heavenly Father. That makes us His children. All of humanity.If God "chooses" who has faith and who doesn't and faith alone is His criterion for giving salvation to people, then God is actively choosing who doesn't get salvation. That means that those without God-given faith aren't even in the race and the decision that they aren't in the race is God's!! It's in that context that I asked

I don't see God as responsible for any of the OT "evil" deeds that you accuse Him of.
Either...1) The OT God foreknew that certain groups of people were rebrobate....so far beyond help that it was either them that had to go or the Jews (In which case the Jews slaughtered and survived it)OR....(more likely)2) The authors of the scriptures wrote about their interpretation of the national identity and relationship with Yahweh and simply wrote that God had told them to slaughter all the people.It would be much as if we found a modern scripture that said"....and in the land of the Amerikites there was much fear for the mighty towers had fallen and the wealthy men had fear of losing their power upon the land. So they gathered together with King Dubya and inquired if something could be done. Dubyas advisors told him, "Surely our God wants us to inact retribution on the lawless ones of the tribe of Al Queda."May it be known that our God is mightier than the foreign gods that are worshipped in the other lands and that He has ordered us to bomb into oblivion every man, woman, and child!"...

"When you (plural) pray, don't pray like them (plural) but pray like this.."'Our' doesn't mean everybody. It means you (plural). You might not believe me (never take a single verse and form a doctrine from it applies as much to me as you) so... Sonship, and thus claiming fathership... is conditional. Not universal.When the word 'you' is used in the NT it is necessary to decide (with biblical backup) to whom the you refers. In the epistles 'you' very often means those who are being addressed. Christians. The letters were written to Christians Firstly the issue of universal fatherhood needs to be addressed. I have above and am open to discussing it further. If it can be established that fatherhood isn't universal then the model you posed has to be set to one side. This doesn't mean there aren't other avenues open to you - just not this one.I believe that "God has mercy upon whom he will have mercy" I also believe that "God wants that none should perish" How this (to our minds) paradox is resolved in his realm I do not know. Our purpose must never be the assumption that all is reconcilible within the bible. We have plenty of biblical warrant to suggest the contraryGod predestines & our choice. If we have difficulty with the idea that God can predestine those whom he knows will chose for him then we might well look to eternity. If that concept boggles our minds then we have sufficient to hold up our hands and say we don't know - for things can patently be resolved in a realm beyond our understanding. If that is reasonable then...We can only accept the apparently contradictory things his word says in one way. By faith: he says it, I can't resolve it, I believe it. Why? Because he says so. Faith in him. There is no other way to reconcile such things...

Deja vu. The issue of universal fatherhood has been addressed - in the passage that Trixie quoted in Message 44:

quote:

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Mat 25:31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
Mat 25:32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

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It says "all nations" - not "the select few from all nations". Everybody will be numbered either among the sheep or the goats.God created all mankind. We are all His children.

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I can (as well as you can) make a sheep>son hence son>father connection. But I cannot make a goat>son hence son >father connection.Whilst there would be a certain amount of amusement in watching you try, it would mostly be bemusement...(Psst Ringo, your a pain in the arse at times but I genuinely do like you. If you bugger of now I'll pretend I never noticed your post. Ah sugar...I HATE saying it but what I'm really trying to say is...I forgive you)ps: in the unlikely event that you accept my foregiveness then make also the created > son connection tooThis message has been edited by iano, 20-Apr-2006 12:22 AM

What part of "all nations" do you not understand?

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All nations = everybody who has ever lived no matter what country they were born in?

It doesn't specifically say "living and dead" - but either way, there are no exclusions.We are all God's children.

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