Honour Amongst Christians

Doesn't seem to be much out there stopping man from doing anything his little mind desires right now. Apart from other people... honourable people. Agreed. But this doesn't make him right, or good, or honourable. Of course He could. And this would make him a power-crazy bully. And very dishonourable. True. I only refuse to play by His rules if His rules are dishonourable. God's got to step up his game if he wants to deserve anyone's respect. Treating people nicely would be a good start. I'm sure if I can do it, God's certainly capable. The atheist viewpoint is irrelevant. I'd much rather spend my time in the lake of fire than forfeit my honour and bend to the will of some unrighteus being with infinite power.I am kinda weak though, it probably wouldn't take much torture to break me. Is that really winning, though, if God has to torture me in order to get me to spend time with Him? It's certainly still not honourable by any means. I choose to follow the virtues of righteousness and honour. Even if an infinite God opposes these, it wouldn't stop me from trying my best to follow those virtues.

I think I am being confusing.I was under the assumptions that Christians thought:"God will grant salvation to anyone who asks, all they have to do is ask, but they must ask."I'm questioning this Christian-based theology. But you seem to be saying something different. And I agree with what you're touching on here. If God grants His forgiveness and salvation to anyone who truthfully concedes that they are wrong, and admits their shortcomings... then I do find this honourable.And I see no asking for salvation here. (Which would mean that the part I find dishonourable doesn't exist)Do you mean that admitting we're wrong is "asking" for salvation?A strange definition for "ask", but I agree that if this is what you mean, I have no arguement with it. It's certainly very honourable.

Yes, I agree more with James.But I wouldn't use "faith" as much as "motive". I'm more concerned with trying to do the right thing (motive) than with believing in God (faith).If faith ever was a nice, clean ideal, I certainly don't find it so now. Faith seems tainted and abused to me, I want to stay away from the word.

Yes, I wouldn't dream of arguing otherwise. In the mean time though, humour's a good way to keep our spirits up.

I defined honourable in the first post:

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By honour, I mean "that which tries to help those less-fortunate and looks for nothing in return".

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Do you disagree?What do you say honourable is, then? Or, if you'd prefer another wording, what does God say honourable is?If God isn't good enough for human standards, He certianly isn't good enough for anything bigger.

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Say God somehow set about convincing a person that they are an unforgiven sinner in his sight and that the fate of unforgiven sinners is surely Hell. Fully convinced of their destination the person cries out to God for mercy.

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I would say it's still free will. This person may be fully convinced of their destination and still choose to accept it. If they believe they are that rotten, it's possible they may believe they deserve the fate. No, it's not honourable. It doesn't really seem to have anything to do with honour. No, the gift is not given completely freely if one has to ask for it. Regardless if that asking is stressed on them by God or not. The only way a gift is given freely (and in an honourable way) is if it didn't have to be asked for.

Yes, it appears I've oversimplified the situation by assuming salvation was granted only with a specific question.Let's go through your more in-depth depiction: I'm trying to assume these are both true for as far as this arguement is concerned. Without these as known truths, the honour issue gets a lot more problems. I think this is part of my problem. I agree that I make mistakes. I agree that I'm not worthy of salvation or eternal life or living alongside a God. But understanding I'm far from perfect, and asking for a great gift are two different things. Is this just along the lines of knowing God is capable of granting salvation and gives it to those who ask?The promise you quote doesn't really make this clear:

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Roma 6:23 (KJV) For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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This says nothing of asking for anything. And I'm already agreeing that God (and Jesus) is the only one capable of granting salvation.

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Hebrews 11:6 above says we must believe that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

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I don't really like this. Is it saying that God rewards those who seek God? That doesn't sound very righteous of God. It sounds very superficial. I think if this was to have any honourable meaning, it would imply that God rewards those who diligently seek God's ways... ways of righteousness and honour. So you're saying there's not so much "asking" involved as their is "trusting in the faith".I agree that solves the honour problem with having to request salvation. But it only invents another problem.1. God exists
2. God is good
3. God created me (and the world, and everything)
4. God will grant me salvation (the greatest gift) if I trust in His existance.
5. My God-granted abilities of reasoning show me no evidence at all of God's existance.
6. I cannot be true to myself (God's gifts to me) and also believe in God's existance.
7. It is dishonourable for me to lie to myself (and disgrace God's gifts) in order to trust in God's existance.It just doesn't make sense.But, if we change 4. from His existance to His virtues of righteousness, goodness and honour, we get:1. God exists
2. God is good
3. God created me (and the world, and everything)
4. God will grant me salvation (the greatest gift) if I trust in His virtues of righteousness, goodness and honour.
5. My God-granted abilities of reasoning show me no evidence at all of God's existance (but it doesn't matter).
6. My God-granted abilities of reasoning show me mountains of evidence of God's virtues, and why I should be following them.
7. I can honourably dedicate my life to upholding the virtues of God. Even though I cannot verify God's existance in itself, it doesn't matter.In the grand scheme of things, this makes much more sense too. Why would an infinite God care if we trusted in His existance? It seems to fit a lot better that an infinite God would care if we tried to be good people.

I'm not really concerned with "being liable". I am liable. I'm at peace with that. Whether I know the consequences or not, whether I know the rules or not, or even whether I'm capable of knowing the rules; I'm liable for my own actions.I have no problems with being considered liable for my actions.The only problem is that some being may judge a good person as evil simply because they didn't bow down to Him. And some people try to pass such a God off as good or honourable Himself. That's just wrong.But I'm learning that first off most people don't respect such a God (which is what I suspected in the first place). And I'm also learning that those who do appear to respect this God, are more getting confused that I'm attacking their specific God but it turns out I wasn't talking about the God they believe in anyway.

Fair enough. So, do good and honour matter to you? Or just not where getting salvation is concerned? If honour doesn't matter to you, why are you concerned with my problem of it? So you do these things because they are commanded of you? Commanded, of course, by the most supreme, all-powerful creator of the universe who knows what's best for everyone. But commanded all the same.Commandments are always without honour. They remove personal responsibility, and therefore remove any sense of honour. Anyone who understands the concepts. They are objective virtues, once the virtue is known and agreed upon by honest individuals. Such as:

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By honour, I mean "that which tries to help those less-fortunate and looks for nothing in return".

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If you think the definition is missing anything, feel free to offer up an alternative or addition so we can discuss it. But you seem to agree that this describes honour. I fully admit this description is incomplete (at best, it's rather limited). I am not capable of putting the entire virtue and all it's facets into a simple definition. But that doesn't stop the virtue from existing. There are a set of actions that humans are capable of that we describe as honourable. One of the most fundamental is helping others and expecting nothing in return. Anyone who understands this concept can decide if anyone (including themselves) is being honourable. Which means I can judge if God is acting honourably. And, of course, God can easily judge if I'm acting honourably. And we'll both agree, too.In that case the answer to "who decides what is honourable?" is kind of nonsense. There is no "who" deciding anything, it's objective and absolute.Anyone "that tries to help those less-fortunate and looks for nothing in return" is being honourable. There doesn't even have to be anyone around to judge it to be so. It is, because that's the meaning of the virtue.Nobody ever created honour and brought it out to the population. The population simply classified a section of good actions under the word honourable.

Hello ICANT, hope things are well today. This may be the only spot of confusion I have. I can't think of any scenario where accept and ask can be used interchangeably. Accepting is receiving a gift that's been granted. Asking is requesting for a gift to be granted. I have no problem with accepting, only asking.

Yes, He would. As far as I can understand, anyway. Yes, honour requires honesty. And in this sense the lake of fire doesn't make sense. In fact, judging anyone on their belief in Him doesn't even make sense. The only judgement that does make sense is on whether or not we're trying to be good people.

Commandments do not remove free will, they simply remove honour. You may still make your decision to follow the commandment, but it is those who do the same thing regardless of the commandment that have honour, not those who do it because they are commanded.In Message 63, you said:

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But to tell you the truth I do not think of doing those things because they might be good or honorable.

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Jesus gave me 2 commandments that I am supposed to try to govern my life by after I accepted God's invitation to come live in His Estate.

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This implies that you do things not because they are good or honourable, but because you have accepted God's invitation and are trying to keep His commandments.Which basically means you do things because you're commanded. Unless I'm interpreting you wrong? You don't have to. We're not talking about "all the things modern man calls honourable". We're talking about one specific thing. One specific thing identified at the beginning of this thread:

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By honour, I mean "that which tries to help those less-fortunate and looks for nothing in return".

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I don't see anything "hatched in the halls of hell" here. Do you not find this statement honourable?

The second part, not the first part. I have free will, and I'm faced with plenty of unbalanced choices everyday. None of those choices remove my free will. Sometimes I choose the one that's apparently "less attractive", just because I can. Sure they're making a free willed choice to jump. Just because you can't stand close to an approaching fire doesn't mean nobody can. And those with something important enough to lose in that fire certainly do choose to run straight into it. Lots of them die in the fire rather than jumping out the window. How is that not free choice? But this doesn't really matter. Why don't we just suppose what you want to say. "God removes our free will". Is that better? 'Cause you havn't yet come up with a scenario that actually removes free choice. I certainly can assume that God removes our choice, if you want me to. Of course not. Where's the honour in choosing something that you're forced into? There's no honour there. And doesn't change the fact that: No, I don't see anything wrong with this situation at all. But I don't see how it represents anything in reality, or what we're talking about.I have a problem with the thought of God granting salvation only to those who ask. And I certainly do have free-will to ask for it or not. And my hands work just fine. I'm really confused about what you're trying to talk about here... If you're trying to somehow say that God grants salvation to anyone he wants to, regardless of whether or not they ask or believe in Him. Then I agree that this is very honourable and I think it describes a very righteous God.

I like the moral of that kind of story. I think I like this, but I'm not sure. What does "comes to God" mean? Is it possible to live righteously and not "come to God"? If so, I don't like what it implies. However, if "comes to God" and "live righteously" are synonyms, I then think it's very wise. Add to it? I still want to take stuff away from it.I think God would be most impressed if we lived righteously. That's it. If you want to live righteously and include the concept of Christian grace... awesome. If you want to live righteously and also "come to God" in an Islamic sense... fantastic. But both extras seem unnecessary to me. I can't think of a reason why a God would want us to do anything more than "live righteously". Isn't that a huge enough task (nigh impossible) on it's own? Isn't any time spent doing anything else taking away from time you could be focusing on living righteously? Doesn't it seem like that should be the priority?...sorry if that sounds preachy. I'm more asking those questions in a curious sense then in a lecture-ish sense.

What you do doesn't have anything to do with honour. Honour is only concerned with why you do things. Loving your wife is a good thing. If you love your wife because you are commanded to, it is a good thing, but it is not honourable. If you love your wife and you are not looking for anything in return, it is a good thing, and it is also honourable. If you do those things simply because you are commanded by Jesus, then there is no honour.If you do those things looking for nothing in return, and they simply happen to coincide with some commandments Jesus also made, then it is honourable.From what you told me in Message 63: ...it seems like you are following these commandments because you want to remain in His Estate.If so, this is not honourable. It may certainly well be a good thing. But there is no honour in it. It is a trade or deal. Of course, I may be misinterpreting your statement from Msg 63. Did you mean to say something else?Try not to confuse "good" with "honour". Honour deals with why we do good things. Not just that those things are good. My problem isn't with there being any price. It's in the asking... here it's in the application. Even submitting the application is dishonourable. If God deems me worthy of being pardoned, then I will be. Applying for such a great gift cheapens it, demeans it to the point of becoming the fulfillment of a request rather than a gift. I do not want to buy it, I know I can't afford it.
I do not want to earn it, I know I'm not worthy of it.
I would certainly accept it if it was granted to me.But I cannot apply for it, the application shows dishonour to God, it turns me into a nagging inconvenience, and it's demeaning to the power of the gift. I don't need to be pursuaded into believing. I can see right now that the process is fair (you ask for something, and you get it in return). It's also good (no one is hurt and everyone's better off after the situation). But it's not honourable.