The Tension of Faith

Sorry Tangle, crappy sense of humor here.Your right in desperate times of utter loss and confusion doing something that points to normalcy can be a comfort in itself.Cheers.

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My beliefs regarding Islam are also a matter of objective truth and have nothing to do with any personal attitude toward Muslims, except that I see them as victims of that miserable ideology.

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But you also seem to have an issue with even Christian immigrants (infact immigrants are overwhelmingly Christian)White Christians are just 43% of the nation. (in identification, remember many whites answer surveys by saying they have no religion)It is the immigrants that are keeping the (by self identification) Christian population at 225-250 million American residents (over 70% of the population), and they fill churches up with attendees.You seem to have a thing with immigrants and liberals and many others. (you often mention immigration when you cry wolf about Muslims)Just my observation.

... unless they believe in Jesus.If someone said: "I'm going to kill people for breathing, unless they're non-Jewish", how does this differ from saying "I'm going to kill people for being Jewish"?

The problem with this reasoning is that it suggests God has some obligation to save people, but the biblical framework tells us that He has no such obligation. We all deserve Hell, that's where you have to start. And other religions leave you to your own efforts to avoid Hell. They don't have a Savior, they have a system by which you try to earn paradise or heaven or whatever by good works, and they have hells for those who don't succeed.Out of mercy God sent a Savior, first prophesying His coming for millennia, for those who will believe in Him, but you act as if it's not mercy, it's something we all deserve so there's something wrong with God for withholding it from those who refuse to believe in Him. That's backwards. Start with the fact that we all deserve Hell, and then consider how little it is He asks of us to be saved from it. But you complain that those who refuse to give that little should not be damned even though the terms are very clear. As for those who never heard of Jesus, there are probably fewer these days than ever before thanks to missionaries, but if you like you could join in getting the word out so more might be saved.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Personally, I believe that getting the word out involves being a person of integrity and honesty as much as possible. Hypothetically I could be selling the right product and yet by my behavior as a salesman, nobody is buying from me.You can't sell a forum full of scientists the idea that belief needs to be the presupposition rather than evidence. At least I can't. IF I TOLD THEM THAT THEY NEED TO OPEN THEIR EYES they might question my sanity.... I can tell them that Jesus is the ultimate presupposition and observation leading to any conclusion, but if I am the only living representative of Jesus that they see, the truth of my book...even if absolute...is destroyed by my character or advanced through my character. We are the point of contact between Jesus and humanity.

Yawn.Until you learn that the message of Jesus has nothing to do with salvation you will remain lost and just a GOAT.It's a shame that so much of today's Christianity is based on the conman salvation snake oil instead of following what Jesus taught.

I didn't say that, I was just discussing what his criterion is. He is in fact damning people for not believing in Jesus, because those are in fact the people he damns.If he says "I'm going to damn all the people with original sin, unless they believe in Jesus", then since all people have original sin, he is in fact damning exactly and only those who don't believe in Jesus, so that's what they're going to Hell for. Speak for yourself. Hey, predestination, remember? God has already decided who will be damned and who saved, and nothing we can do can interfere with his sovereign power of election. The number is fixed.

Yeah but we don't know the number or who is and who isn't, so for all intents and purposes God's overarching sovereignty in predestination doesn't affect our choices.And I don't determine that we all deserve Hell, it's standard biblical theology. Any transgression of the Moral Law (The Ten Commandments being an abstract of it) makes us deserving of Hell. That's all it took for Adam and Eve to lose their standing with God, and most of us commit sins against the Moral Law every day.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He asks us to spend eternity with a bunch of Christians. That's a Hell that even I don't deserve.

But according to you our choices are irrelevant to salvation, so the possibility of salvation shouldn't affect them anyway.

That's your destiny! You may need an eternity to educate them.

Choosing or not choosing Christ certainly affects our salvation. (...that whosoever believes on Him should have eternal life.)Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So by believing the right things you can force God to save you ?

Strange way to put it. But yes, if you insist on putting it that way. If you actually believe that Christ died to pay for your sins so that you won't go to Hell I suppose you could say God must save you. If you insist on putting it that way.

But according to Calvin God makes all our choices for us too. We're like Leibnitz's windowless monads. God will march a missionary up to someone whom he's already decided to save. He'll make the missionary give his spiel. Then he'll make the person who heard the spiel believe --- not as a consequence of the missionary saying the thing, but because he'd already decided that that guy would believe and be saved. Not only is choice a delusion, but cause and effect is a charade.Well, God has apparently decided that I'm not going to be one of his missionaries. Or believers.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.