The Tension of Faith

Gosh, have you ever read the Bible?Oh right, only the parts you like. The rest are just later inventions.

Many times. That is where I find the evidence that no one has a clue what God thinks.It is a lesson repeated many time throughout the Bible. A great example is the Exodus folk tale. There the message from God is supposed to be "Let my people go!" yet when Pharaoh say, "No problem, they are free to go!" the God character decides that is not enough so the God character changes Pharaoh's mind.Right from the very beginning of the Bible we see similar examples. The God in Genesis 1 is entirely different than the God in Genesis 2&3. Later the God says "Yo, go take your kid up and sacrifice him" but then seems to change his mind and spares the kid with little more than a "Just kidding." as an excuse.The God character decides to wipe out all life on earth but then afterwards decides that was dumb and says he will never do it with a flood again. She doesn't say "I will never wipe out all life" but just "I won't try to wipe out all life with a flood again."The various characterizations of God found in the Bible show that the god is whatever the author of the story wants to fill in the plot of that particular story.There is a lesson but it is the lesson common to most such religious creations and that is that humans should try to do what is right and help their neighbors.If you will agree that what God wants is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, protect the weak and forgive the sins of others then I would agree that sounds like a great plan. But that is certainly not clear based on all of the stories about God found in the Bible.

Really? Actually, you haven't made any attempt to at all "to explain the distinctions" on the issues I raised. You instead did what you always do when someone raises issues you can't answer, accuse them of insulting you as an excuse for not answering the issues you couldn't answer anyway. Nothing I said could be construed as an insult. It's not an insult to echo your own statements back to you.Just so the issues you're ignoring don't get forgotten, here's a list:

• It's only speaking truth, not an insult, to say that you only have messages of hate for LGBT folks, those who obtain abortions, and followers of Islam (this is the short list).
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• Speaking of insults, I did find one recent one, but it came from you in your Message 1199:
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  Faith in Message 1199 writes:

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  Either that or you aren't very bright.
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  Ah, I can just feel the love!
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• You never resolved this contradiction:
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  Faith writes:

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  God is a God of love, period.
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  And Jesus came the first time to save, but He's coming again for vengeance on God's enemies.
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  So will the real God please stand up? Is he a God of love or vengeance? Which is it?
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• Where is this evidence of apparitions that you keep talking about? There's no evidence of them in the real world, and not a single mention in the Bible. I think you've been reading too many ghost stories.
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• Also about apparitions, how did your one supposed witnessing of an apparition turn you into an expert in recognizing the supernatural?
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• Speaking of the supernatural, how can the supernatural be part of the natural? A superset cannot be part of the set it contains.
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• Given that:
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  • Revelation 16:14 says, "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles,..."
  • Billy Graham taught that angels could do miracles: "Much of what they [angels] do could be labeled as miracles." (Does God still do miracles)
  • Bible Hub says, "It would seem that the angels can work miracles." (Whether Angels Can Work Miracles?)
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  Therefore according to the Bible angels can perform miracles. Not that there's any such thing as miracles, but the Bible contradicts your claim that only God can perform miracles.
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• How do you know miracles no longer occur?
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• How do you know God created angels (and demons, too, I presume). Can we get the Bible citation on that?
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• From your Message 1197:
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  Faith in Message 1197 writes:

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  Cuz so many get seduced by Satan the liar.
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  How do you know you're not one of the people seduced by Satan?
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• How do you know that the miracles described at Religion's Top 10 Astonishing Miracles are not really miracles?

Looking forward to finally having answers to all these issues.--Percy

If you define information about sin as "hate" then you get to call me a hater (one ouf your foul insults). But I don't hate gay people and I don't hate women who have had abortions. I consider myself a sinner, one of the worst, does that mean I hate myself? But you certainly seem to hate me by the way you carry on.There is no contradiction between God being a God of love and a God of vengeance. Love extends salvation to everyone, but those who hate God will eventually suffer His vengeance. Until then the offer of salvation remains open. You couldn't really have love without hatred for the unrepentant and the incorrigibly wicked. If Hitler repented he could be saved. He didn't repent. Are you sorry he isn't saved?I don't recall mentioning evidence for apparitions. All the sightings of Mary? I don't think I mentioned that either. Unfortunately I expect fair minded people to accept witness reports as evidence.I may check out your miracles evidence eventually. I've been making a distinction between different classes of miracles, and it seemed to me from the scriptures. that God and Jesus did miracles that suspend the laws of the physical world, while those presented on the thread, such as apparitions and bleeding eyes and that sort of parlor-trick level "miracle" do not fall into that class. I think the class distinction holds up, but perhaps there are examples of angels doing the first order of miracle. However, I don't see that distinction made in your reference to the Billy Graham source. I don't care either way, I drew my conclusion from the evidence I gave. If more evidence says otherwise I can change my conclusion.I don't KNOW that miracles no longer occur (what I SAID is that I BELIEVE they don't). but I do know that the charismatic branches of the Church which claim they do still occur can only come up with very unconvincing lists, and their whole orientation to things supernatural got a big black eye through a conference done a few years ago called the "Strange Fire Conference." I have no doubt that God COULD do miracles any time He wants, but the ones done in scripture were done for the purpose of identifying God as the one true Creator God, and since that was accomplished in the scripture, that's why many believe they are no longer occurring. The only --abe: convincing /abe --- argument I've seen to their continuance relates to third world and tribal cultures where missionaries have to deal with their demon spirit gods, and God may give miracles as proof that the missionaries are teaching about the one true Creator God. This may occur, I don't rule it out, I just haven't read a convincing report yet.The apparition I saw was only the visible supernatural event, I had a couple of years of strange supernatural goings on before I became a Christian, and even a couple after that -- a voice telling me to pray for someone that I knew was a demon voice, and the sensation of hands around my neck trying to strangle me in the middle of the night, that stopped when I said I was covered by the blood of Jesus. But I also talked to many others who had supernatural experiences, as I mentioned. I only remember one where a follower of the guru Rajneesh said she also saw an apparition in her room, in her case a demon-angel being that was half of each, split down the middle, that I've seen in some Hindu illustrations. And I've read about these things too of course. What on earth did I say that implies I have any special knowledge or that there even IS any special knowledge to be had? I thought what I said was pretty simple and straightforward.God is the one and only uncreated God, everything else was created by Him. It's no great problem to point out that demons and angels are therefore created beings. He originally created angels, a third of them followed Satan when he rebelled, and became demons.I trust the Bible, that's my source of knowledge.The quality of the miracles at that site is what I was going by. They seem like paltry little tricks although supernatural in the conventional sense of that term. I've explained that many times already -- it's the living BEINGS that we call supernatural that are, strictly speaking, natural because they are created. And although their "miracles" may be supernatural in the same sense, they are inferior to God's that can suspend the laws of nature. Again, it seems a very reasonable distinction based on scripture to me, but I don't have a problem with angels doing the bigger kind of miracle if you can show me one. I'm used to reading about the manifested gold dust and even trinkets that the Hindu gurus can do, and the statues that bleed and so on, that just seem like petty little things compared to parting the Red Sea and turning water to wine and raising the dead and so on. And Tangle's list of "miracles" all relate to human powers that Hindus claim to develop in their religious practices. Unlike the miracles in scripture they seem utterly whimsical and purposeless. Elijah did a miracle that kept a widow and her son fed through a long famine. He also raised her son from the dead. He also showed the priests of Baal that the true God could turn a sopping wet meat sacrifice to ash in one bolt of fire from heaven whereas they couldn't get Baal to do a thing. Those seem to me to have important purposes in validating the Creator God's existence and character, as compared to an adept's transporting himself around the spirit "worlds" and the like, which are the "miracles" on Tangle's list. {I could also mention a book by the Chinese Christian leader Watchman Nee (who spent his last years in prison under Mao), in which he identifies personal powers like those on Tangle's list, and specifically a laughing fit that got called "revival" in some churches in the nineties, -- called them "soul power," meaning capacities of the human soul that were lost or distorted at the Fall but may continue in some people and be released after a person is born again, or under the concerted disciplines of the Hindu adepts. Some kinds of psychic knowledge, small scale healings, speaking in tongues, and the things Hindu adepts do seem to be in that class too. But he says they are to be suppressed as they have nothing to do with the practices of true Christian life, and they are certainly not miracles).Oh and your insults of me are beyond offensive by comparison to the few of mine against you, IMHO.So there are some answers, though I've already given a lot of it that you've shrugged off, so since I expect the same from you now I suspect this is probably the last thing I'll say to you on this thread.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hi Stile, I myself believe that if something exist in our universe then it is natural. Just because we do not know from whence it came does not mean it is 'supernatural'. I believe supernatural is a place holder term. *and if God is ever found to exist and explained then he would be natural as well.**Edited by 1.61803, : **add edit**

Hate is hate. Spreading "information" about hate is no excuse.And of course, hate is the worst form of sin:

quote:

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1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

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You need to get a handle on your impulse control. You feel the impulse to declare the discussion over, so you do, yet here you are continuing the discussion. You feel the impulse that ignoring me is what to post, so you do, even though you are definitely not ignoring me. And so it goes. Of course you don't. So of course you believe they should be able to buy a wedding cake in any bakery they like. Of course you don't. So of course you have no objection to making abortion clinics available so that woman can freely choose.And you forgot Islam, so I'll fill that one in for you: Of course you don't. So of course you have no objection to allowing immigration for followers of Islam. Well I guess you're just a "Queen of Hearts" kind of person, then. So how many impossible things do *you* believe before breakfast. Ah, I can just feel the love.What if you love God but think he's fictional? A message or two ago you said God is love. Seems to me, as I'm sure it seems to everyone but you, that a God of love would have love for the unrepentant and incorrigibly wicked. I'm sorry Hitler ever existed, but being saved is a Christian fiction, so who cares if he was or wasn't saved? You haven't. What I said was that there's no evidence for apparitions, and no mention of them in the Bible, that you've been reading too many ghost stories. Don't check it out on my behalf - I only linked to it to give you or GDR a starting point. I don't believe miracles exist, but if you or GDR think they exist and think they can be studied (GDR provided the example of the Big Bang, which is already under study and which hasn't revealed any miracles yet) then by all means provide an example of a miracle we can study. This is an "angels on the head of a pin" kind of argument. I don't care how many classes of miracles you believe in or which you think are real, or which you think are parlor tricks, or which you think angels can do and which you think they can't. From where I sit you're just piling the fictions higher and higher, making more and more claims about the real world (since you claim there's really no supernatural world) for which there isn't an ounce of evidence, and for which you claim there can't be evidence anyway, so how could you possibly know?You say you trust eyewitness testimony in the Bible, but there's no evidence in the Bible or anywhere else of their trustworthiness as eyewitnesses. We have much better knowledge of simple human nature, which invents stories about miracles all the time. I'll bet many eyewitnesses to modern miracles would swear on a stack of Bibles that they really saw what they saw, but I'll equally bet that you wouldn't believe them even if they wrote the account in the style of John.You know what one of the most common types of religious flim-flam is today? Faith healing. You know what type of miracle Jesus performed more than any other? Faith healing. Think about it. What did you say? You said the supernatural was very easy to tell from the natural, that anyone could do it, even me.There's still the problem that for you there's not really any supernatural, that it's all really part of the natural, so now what you're really saying becomes completely unclear because you're saying how easy it is to tell the natural that's really the supernatural except that it isn't really the supernatural but is part of the natural but a different part of the natural from the natural. Good luck parsing that, but that's the kind of sense you're making. Where in the Bible does it say that God created angels and demons? And let's not forget apparitions. What you should say is, "I have faith in the Bible, that's my source of inspiration." Mine aren't insults. I just describe what you do or say. Being called out does feel very similar to being insulted, but what you're actually feeling is outrage that someone has the nerve to call you out.You spent a great deal of time and effort describing what you truly believe, so I appreciate that and thank you.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I don't hate serial thieves either, so I guess that means I should be in favor of everybody leaving their doors unlocked and never arresting thieves?I answered a message of yours that didn't happen to be insulting -- well, except for the first sentence -- but you are right, I should stick to my guns, so I will ignore you from this one on, which helps since you are certainly insulting in this one. You don't seem to know what the word means.Oh, and this is also one of your stupider messages as well.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But I didn't insult you. As I said, I just describe what you do or say, which is exactly what I did in Message 1252: Isn't that merely a description of exactly what you did? I'm sure everyone here is more than willing to cut people a few breaks, but you've been doing this for years. Asking for more than a decade's worth of cutting you a break is an absurd request. If you don't like being called on it, stop doing it.Now, don't forget this time, you've called an end to the discussion, and you're ignoring me. There should be no more posts from you in this thread. Translation: You don't think LGBT people should be able to buy wedding cakes in any bakery they like, you don't think abortion clinics should be available so women have the right to choose, and you don't think followers of Islam should be allowed into the country. Yeah, right, you don't hate anybody, you just want to inflict your own special version of love on everyone. A mere declaration with no evidence yet again. Faith, Faith, Faith, how many times do we have to tell you? You can't just declare something so, you have to show it is so.--Percy

Not sticking to my guns again. My problem isn't the impulse to ignore you, it's the caving in when I should stick to it. Don't cut me any slack, keep piling on the insults, I know I should stick to one policy and leave it at that so you can have a field day hating me for not doing that.You are simply insulting a person when you tell lies about them. I do not hate anyone. You are asking me to violate God's law and if I don't violate it that makes me a "hater," that PC lie that comes in so handy for intimidating your opposition.What you are talking about, what you are lying about, is that it has nothing to do with my own feelings or attitudes, it's about what the Bible says about sin. The Bible defines all kinds of sexual sin and homosexuality is one of the sins, and to marry homosexuals is a violation of God's ordained law of marriage. Those who ignore God or hate Him can support gay marriage, since they don't care what God thinks, but Christians cannot but you call them haters for obeying God. Obviously you're the hater.Abortion is the murder of unborn babies. I don't hate women who have abortions, in many cases if they really know what they are doing they can't do it; and I certainly don't hate the babies who should be protected. Those who are for abortions apparently hate the babies. And they hate God.I don't hate Muslims and neither does God, but Islam is a dangerous ideology that makes murderous jihadists of some of its members who understand it that way, so that "compassion" in bringing them into the country puts American citizens at risk, which suggests that although you don't hate Muslims you do hate Americans. The Americans that have already been murdered by jihadists, and the Europeans as well, and the Africans too. You love Islam and hate all those other people, and all the people you put at risk by giving them potential jihadists for neighbors.So keep on lying, keep on hating, that's all you're doing. I do apologize for my "poor impulse control," -- another stupid infantilizing insult -- but more for my need to keep trying to set you straight knowing it isn't going to happen. THAT I despise myself for.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This one always ends up in me laughing. Yes, all 73 books of it. Numerous times. Numerous translations, too. Have you ever gone past the 66 books in your favourite version of the Bible? And you do know that 66 is just one number away from 666?Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

That is correct. Not in Christian bakeries which would force the Christian owners to deny their faith. That is in fact an unconscionably evil thing to do, especially when there are plenty of other choices. And it contributes to increasing God's judgment on a nation to legalize a practice that violates God's law. Every day we are hastening God's judgment against America, and against the west, with such laws, and in case you don't know what God's judgment does, it destroys a nation by many possible means, by economic failure, by enemy infiltration and enemy attacks, by civil war, by many means, until the nation no longer exists. This is spelled out in Leviticus (26 I believe) and also in Deuteronomy. I wouldn't overturn the existing law so cavalierly, but yes the very idea of "choosing" murder is evidence of the low moral level the west has sunk to. I consider it an evil thing to do to the nation and to the women themselves to make murdering the unborn a casual thing, which brings God's judgment on the nation and on the women too, but nobody tells them that. Legal murder is not a good thing. "Righteousness exalts a nation" says the scripture, unrighteousness will sink a nation. Increase the provisions for adoption instead. I think followers of Islam should be vetted to an extreme before being allowed into any western nation where we are regarded as infidels, since their religion/ideology calls for mistreating or killing infidels. I think such an action is a hateful cruelty to nonMuslims and specifically to Jews and Christians, whom you obviously hate while loiving Muslims.What you call love is really hate and vice versa.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh, what a surprise. The simple act of declaring what you're going to do and then doing it is impossible for you. Who ever would have guessed. Your problem? My dear, for you it isn't a single problem but a host of problems. The question isn't whether you'll treat people uncaringly, insultingly and sometimes even threatenly, but which of your many methods of offense you will choose. This time you chose to not do what you said you were going to do, but next time who knows? But we do know there will be a next time, and that it will be something that a person with normal humanity and compassion would not do. But I don't hate you. The discordance between your words and deeds is so extreme that I've been forced to label you a liar, a conclusion I avoided for years, but I don't hate you. And I do think you're a horrible excuse for a human being along the lines of a Trump or a Bannon but without the grandiose delusions, but I don't hate you. But neither do I think that expressions of hate from people like you and Trump and Bannon should be met with a shrug of the shoulders and a polite, "Well, that's just the way they are." I will call out your hate every time. Liar. You're expressing hate every time you threaten your fellow participants with judgment day. You're expressing hate every time you you inflict your attitudes on others, taking away the right of free participation in the economy from the LGBT, taking away choice from women, and taking away immigration from followers of Islam. God is just your excuse of choice for justifying your inhumanity. Your hate is the same hate that Southerners had for the black man. Just like you, God was their excuse for their hate, expressed by holding the black man in bondage.So that's the first point from my list from Message 1248, which I guess still isn't settled. Here's the rest of the items from the list, with your answers if you provided them:

• How can a God of love wreak vengeance on people?
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• You have no evidence of apparitions, nor any citations to provide a Biblical foundation for their existence
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• You don't know how to tell the supernatural (which you say is actually just part of the natural) from the natural.
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• How can the supernatural be part of the natural, since a superset cannot reside within the set it contains?
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• You don't know that angels and demons cannot perform miracles.
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• How do you know you're not one of the people seduced by Satan?
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• How do you know that the miracles described at Religion's Top 10 Astonishing Miracles are not really miracles?

Discussion only diverted down this path when I inquired whether this thread was about true faith or about a faith founded upon evidence. You've offered only evidence that believers can see, that is, no evidence at all. The basis for your beliefs, misguided though they are, is faith, not evidence.--Percy

A second reply to the same message. Making the same points. Why, I am so blessed! Thank you. The baker's thing has been discussed to death, I'm not going to continue it. Suffice to say that the baker is no longer selling wedding cakes in the secular economy, which is open to all. And who better to tell us about God's judgment and threaten us with it than you? You really should get up in Hyde Park some time.--Percy

Of course the baker is no longer in business. Today's equivalent of being eaten by lions in the arena. What do you expect when the Christianity that built the west is supplanted by the paganism it originally overthrew? We're getting back to the Romans throwing Christians to the lions because they refused to bow down to Caesar. We're getting there though. How long after all that was it that Rome fell?I'm sure you're right, I do belong in Hyde Park at least, but really something bigger and better. I'm certainly the only one here who knows what's going on.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.