Assumptions about faith

The Jesus of the Bible is a not "real".The Bible records only some of what Jesus said or did, and even then, it was recorded differently by different people.To hold that the Jesus of the Bible is the sum total of the man is ridiculous.The Bible never mentions Jesus taking a dump. Son of God or no, I'm betting he had to relieve himself at least once.The Bible records only SOME of what Jesus said. Were the rest of his words just completely worthless? Did he not say ANYTHING to any of the other apostles?The YECs believe in Biblical literalism because they hold that Jesus was God, that Jesus was inerrant, and that Jesus said that the writings of Moses were correct.But, if Jesus was divine and inerrant, then EVERY SINGLE THING he ever said was important. Where is the 99.99% of the things he did and said?

I don't look for "true meaning" in one verse - or in the whole Bible, for that matter. If there are conditions or qualifications on the "gift" it isn't really a gift, it's more of a sale.The assumption that I'm questioning, as per the topic, is that faith has anything whatsoever to do with grace. Grace would be grace with or without faith.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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Did I say that? Or are you just sayin'?Cause I don't know anyone who thinks that. No and no. I think that's obvious. Why do you feel the need to point that out? Consider the hypothetical situation:Peter: "Hey Jesus, how's it going?
Jesus: "I'm well, how about you?"
Peter: "I'm well too."
Jesus: "Cool."You'd consider that important? More or less improtant that him taking a shit? Lost in history.

I wasn't expecting you to expect me to define what I meant by the "true meaning" of a sentence, ringo, for pete's sake! I suppose that was my error, though. In any event, you can call it a sale as opposed to a gift if you like. I only wanted to point out that the verse itself is not all that difficult to fathom so long as you parse it out.Grace and faith are entirely independent entities here, IMO, so, although I hesitate to assume anything with you, it seems we agree on that point.

Just to be clear, I'm not the one who's saying that grace is a sale. I'm saying it would be a sale if Paul's words were interpreted as most Paulians do (and as you seem to do).I'm saying that if grace is truly grace, then faith doesn't enter into it and we have to find a meaning for "through faith" that's a few fathoms deeper.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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You feel you are in a position to determine whether or not something which God said is worth listening to?The foundation of YEC is that this one sentence that Jesus said was written down correctly and outweighs the 99.99% of the rest of the stuff he said.So, consider this exchange lost to history:Mark: Hey, Jesus, did you mean creation literally took six days?
Jesus: Well, not "days" like a 24 hour day. It's an allegory.
Mark: What's an allegory?
Jesus: It's like a parable, a story to express a concept. It's not to be taken literally.
Mark: Oh, cuz me and the other guys thought you meant 6 actual days.
Jesus: No. That'd be crazy. Hey, are you writing this down?
Mark: Nah, I'll remember to write it down later.
Jesus: Be sure that you do.
Mark: Right-o Chief. Hey, pass the wine.

For me, sure. Fuck YEC What's your point?

Whatever do you mean by "if grace is truly grace, then faith doesn't enter into it"? You don't seem to fully understand the construct: a measure of divine grace was necessary in order that we might be saved by our faith (as opposed to some other means, if any). God exercised this measure of grace. You seem to be wholly offended that God didn't simply wave a wand over you to make you pure. (This seems to me very immature thinking on your part.) The fact that you must exercise faith as a condition of your salvation does not diminish the measure of grace that was afforded to you by one iota. You are forgetting or ignoring the fact that, as a beneficary of this plan of salvation, you have been shown unmerited favor by God. This is "truly unmerited favor", shall we say, thus it as is "truly grace" as it can be.

That the YECrs are crack pots who've teetered their entire faith on the head of a pin.

Faith is irrelevant to the existence of Grace. The idea of Grace is that God forgives. That no man starts out damned. It's a done deal.The only question is whether you believe that or not. That is where Faith comes in. Do you believe in Grace?Grace exists regardless of whether or not you have Faith in the fact.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

BTW, I'm not saying that "grace is a sale" either, as was just demonstrated in my previous post. That's something you brought up by your own convoluted (read: twisted) logic. You say we need to find a meaning for "through faith," but I suggest you come up for air and look closer to the surface--it's not to be found "a few fathoms deeper," as you suggest. Again, just parse the sentence. Tthere's no great mystery to it at all, so quit making it so difficult!

No, I'm saying that that's exactly what He did do: He made us all pure. By grace, for no particular reason, He pre-forgave us for everything we do wrong. It's our responsibility to do as little wrong as possible and to try to fix what we do do wrong, for our own sake and for our neighbours' sake - not for His sake. Putting any kind of condition on grace would nullify it completely. Actually, you're the one who's ignoring that. We have been shown unmerited favour by God - unmerited by our actions and unmerited by our faith.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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"True" Christian, I have already explained what I believe is meant by "for by grace are ye saved through faith." I doubt that you and I would ever agree on how grace works beyond that. I believe God has shown me grace, and, of course, that God shows grace to others as well. Beyond that, I think there exists plenty of dogma to go around for anyone who desires to partake of it. No offense intended, but you asked me.

I scratched the surface a long time ago. You don't find gold just lying around waiting to be picked up. You have to dig for it. The topic is about questioning the assumptions of faith, not swallowing them hook, line and sinker.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
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You know, ringo, I honestly feel that you are merely acting the part on me. Are you a contrarian or something? I mean no disrespect by that, but you just refuse to deal in the substance of things. It's always like, "no, you're the one whose doing that." I feel like I'm in the old Abbot & Costello bit "Who's on first", and it's almost as comical, too (but nly to a point). Seriously, I'm beginning to question your sincerity.
You gotta help me out on that score--I'm not into buffoonery or clowning around for hours at a time.Now you've accused me, among other things, of ignoring the fact that I have been shown unmerited favor by God, and then you proceed to restate the very point I made in my previous post. Can you understand my frustration? Are you only just toying with me?