Summations Only

That's a might too condescending. Your post was not all that subtle anyway. No more so than I have to any other human. Father does not mean 'mentor' at all. That just one role for a parent, and I would submit that God is not a mentor. Beyond that, you seem to be arguing my case and not yours. Some uses of the term father don't imply any obligation at all. All analogies have breaking points. If arguing by analogy is your normal style, you should anticipate being wrong quite a bit.

Actually, if we want to make analogies in that sense, "brothers", "neighbors", "fellow human", and "peers" works just as well for describing our relationship to each other. That relationship does not make me your "God" to reverse the sense of the metaphor. Why do I need to do that? Show me where the Bible describes an obligation to protect you from being eaten by a lion, and I'll be happy to use the Father metaphor to describe that relationship.Edited by NoNukes, : Complete argument.

We should not strive to be wrong by deliberately arguing a metaphor past it's breaking point. I am not just saying that you are potentially wrong, I am saying that you are stretching a metaphor at least to the point where it is not the least bit persuasive. You can call God your Father, but even your own parent is not obligated to watch over you to make sure you don't misstep or encounter danger. If you think there is an obligation, then provide an argument.

Nicely done CS. When I thought about the topic offline, this was the best example I could come up with.What I would add though, is that the 'obligation' described here is an obligation that God has taken on. If you want to use this to rationalize that God owes us a world without war or a sun that won't be unsuitable in a few billion years, these verses are not much help.

I believe your nose is in error. I can point to past discussion involving exactly those examples.The real disagreement I have is with the idea that we can use the term 'Father' to make up obligations for God that we have no evidence or scripture indicating that God has agreed to.Edited by NoNukes, : Tweaked to remove endorsement of another poster

Maybe not, but if God breaks such promise, it would not be all that strange that we would judge him by that breach. Yes. This is exactly the point.

If people want to back out of earlier positions all they have to do is say so. I don't even mind if people change positions in the same thread.

You want some bro?

My personal experience is that fastening does provide me with some extra amount of focus when accompanied by a dedicated period of Bible study or even planned acts of charity. And as far as a marketing tool, given that I would perform a fast by myself without any sharing outside of my spouse, and that no one would know I was doing it I don't know what marketing result would come from such my doing such a thing.I acknowledge that I may have missed your point. I agree that the Bible verse cited by Phat above is not really a recommendation to fast. But on the other hand, Jesus himself did mention the effectiveness of fastening directly, so there is no need to rely on a misinterpretation.In any event, fasting isn't a central teaching, in my opinion. If you don't do it, or don't see the benefit, that's certainly not something I'd find unusual.

Okay jar. That one got a smile out of me!! And I needed one today, very badly.

Moses did not claim to hear an inner voice of God. The Bible tell us that God met with Moses in various physical ways throughout Moses life. Are you claiming to have experiences similar to those described in the Bible regarding Moses? To Paul and Damascus?Just how many inner voice discussion with God are described in the Bible? Isn't that primarily a phenomena claimed by the post New Testament Church? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The question was about "inner voice" communications from God. Do you think a voice coming out of a donkey's mouth is relevant? Were any of your examples relevant. It does not appear so to me. Are you making my point or yours?

How can good and free will both exist without evil, or not good existing? I don't believe such a thing is even possible. The choices then are to create good and evil or to create robots without the potential for doing anything but what they are told to do. Given a choice of a universe to live in, I'd prefer the former.

So am I. God creates, and evil exists of necessity and not because it is the will of God or the purpose of God.

Worms are not evil.