Spiritual Warfare Fight Thread...

As a kid, I remember reading the classifieds in my small-town newspaper. Sometimes there would be these wierd prayers stuck in amongst the ads for selling bass boats and washing machines.They would read something like the following:"Most Wonderful and Benevolent Jesus, Lamb of God, Prince of Peace, in eternal servitude and prostration, thank you for prayers answered."-M.R.There would be three or four of them from the same person, always a little different but in the same style.This thread reminds me of those ads in the classified section.

ROTFLMAO!!!

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When the Spirit/God gives up on a person,

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Some parent God is, eh?Not all-powerful and all-knowing, either, apparently.

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God only promises to be a Father if one responds.

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Not a very good father, then.At least, not by any definition of good parenting I have ever heard.Good parents love their children even if the children act out, hate, disown the parents.Parental love is not conditional.

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The unconditional love/grace/mercy of God has ONE condition :

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LOL! Well, if God's love has even one condition, that kind of precludes it's being UNconditional, doesn't it?

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that it be responded to in a predetermined amount of time known only to God.

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So, I don't know, nor do I have any way of knowing, the consequences of my actions, yet I will be punished for not doing the right thing?More bad parenting.

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God is not a doormat.

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Apparently, God is also a lousy, inconsistent, fickle parent which can turn His love for His children off and on at His whim.Good thing we hold human parents to a higher standard, eh?

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And the post that started this particular exchange is actually incomplete.

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The overriding and controlling truth that supercedes all other truth is the truth of the gospel.

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Accoding to you, sure.

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Your subjective standard of what defines good parenting is nothing but a lousy excuse for whitewashing the sin of rejecting the Creator, which boils down to not wanting a Boss.

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I do have a boss. She's a wonderful employer and we have a great, mutually-respectful relationship.The kind of capricious, fickle, trick-playing, unfair Boss you are describing doesn't seem to be worth my respect.

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IF God is, then whatever He does is right. Who can challenge Him ?

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Um, if God said it was OK to murder and rape people, woould you consider it just and moral to do so? I wouldn't, but by your definition of "good", which seems to be "God says X is good", you would think that murder and rape is "good".

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Now how foolish is your stance of defiance. You hate the thought of being accountable

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Excuse me!I am VERY accountable for my actions to myself, my family, my friends, coworkers, and my society. I don't get where you get off having an opinion about my feelings of accountability at all.

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Your logic of good parenting transposed upon God says that He must love you always and continuously even if you sneer at Him OR He does not exist.

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Yep. Surely, since God made me and is all-knowing, he made me to be just like I am, and with full knowledge that I would be like I am.BTW, I actually do not know if God exists or not, although I do not think that it is likely that we could detect of conceive of God anyway.

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Where do you get your ideas about God ? What is your source ?

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I was raised a Catholic and attended 14 years of Catechism. They always told us that God loved everyone, even the non-believers, because we were all his children. That was the message of Jesus; that even though he was persecuted and tortured, he still loved all people enough to die for their sins. He loved everyone; even the people who didn't believe he was the messiah, and he died for their souls, too.

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These questions are rhetorical. You get them from this present faithless generation which is more in love with themself than God.

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Whoops! Wrong on that one. BTW, I'm hardly going to be in the "current generation". I'm 36.

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The Bible predicted our present culture, as it is the first generation in history to refuse the romance that God offers.

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LOL!! I'd love a nickel for every time somebody has said that over the last 2000 years.

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Your criticisms of God are meaningless because they lack any objective integrity.

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Does this mean that I hit a nerve?I mean, you certainly are getting upset. Maybe God is a bad parent, able to turn off his love, but why worship a god of conditional love?
It seems like you are anthromorphising God, only to make him more shallow and vindictive, like a juvenile human.

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Its your way, all the way, all the time, that a God must pass my self centered litmus test and revolve around me or I won't be bothered.

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Look, any God which I'm going to consider has to behave more powerfully and less weakly and needily than a neurotic emotional vampire. Why is God so dependent upon me to believe in him? What's with the ego problem?

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God demands that YOU revolve around Him.

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Why? HE'S GOD!! I ask again, what's the deal with the ego problem?If you are going to instill all of these human emotional needs into your God, then I think it's perfectly fair for me to describe Him in the way I have.

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People everyday use the Bible to rationalize their own way, which by defintion is not God's way.

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How do you know that you are not using the Bible to rationalize your own way, while convincing yourself that it is God's way?

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text book atheist rant

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...except that I'm not an atheist.I'm Agnostic.I don't know if God exists or not.And even if it was a "textbook rant" the fact that you refuse to address my points is quite telling. I've only responded to YOUR characterization of God, you know.I mean, why don't you point out how I'm wrong if you think I'm wrong?Surely, you have a response, right?

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Schraf, that much nickel has yet to be mined.....

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LOL!

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The post that I labeled a "rant" was your response to a reply of mine that simply explained, among other things, specifics about God's love.
It was those specifics that ignited the leaning towards atheism in you.

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What you described as "God's love" inspired no feelings about God.It inspired confusion about why you, or anyone, would choose to envision God as an emotionally-needy, inconsistent, unfair parent.If you had described a person in the way you described God, I would be sure to avoid that person like the plague.

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The climax of your "agnostic" eruption came when you insulted the love of God to be something ridiculously common, and thus unbelievable.

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Again, I was only responding to your characterization!YOU are the one who anthropomorphises God to have all of these human-like emotional needs, and petty vengeful tendencies.

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A true agnostic would take no offense to anything I said if they truly are agnostic.

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I wasn't offended at all, just rather incredulous.Also, please forgive me if I do not follow your proscription of what Agnostics would or wouldn't think.

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If you or anyone were to make fun of the romance/love of God - why would I be offended ? They be rejecting God, not me.

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Yes, I do reject your very human, needy, abusive characterization of God.

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You asked how would I really know if someone was justifying "their way" as "God's way" ?

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It takes a spirit, honesty/integrity, and intelligence. These are prerequisites to getting on with God.

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There are honest, intelligent people with great integrity who believe that they were abducted by aliens.How do you know they are wrong?Besides, I asked how YOU know you aren't justifying your own way by cnvincing yourself that it's God's way?How can I tell the difference between someone who is "really" following God's way and someone who is following their own way and only "thinks" they are following God's way?

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Everything just said is data - what you do with it is your business.

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Well, if your sermon is "data", then the Gita and the Quran and the Epic of Gilgamesh are equally "data".

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With all due respect I doubt your agnosticism. The origins of agnosticism are rooted in atheism but that is another subject.

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It's fine that you doubt my agnosticism.As an agnostic, I admire and value doubt.

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"it is impossible to expose oneself to evidence and not form an opinion"

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This is the conclusion of atheist intelligencia that ran Stanford University in the 1950's.

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I completely agree with this conclusion, and I go a step further and say it is axiomatic truth.

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But you insist agnosticism at 36 years old.

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What kind of "evidence" does your quote refer to?

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How ridiculous to contend that God will somehow become a perpetrator of romance.

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Your characterization of God was in no way "romantic" to me.Your God seems to be a petty, inconstant and emotionally-needy.If your characterization had actually been romantic, I would have understood completely. Who wouldn't like to imagine their God as attentive, loyal, thoughtful, and loving?I guess your idea of what "romantic" is is very different from mine.

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I used to cringe when "Jesus freaks" slobbered that mushy nonsense onto me. Then I suffered a personal catastrophe and God "made me" relate to Him like a theist.

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Of course, I would say that, in your time of emotional need, you created God in your own image (only stronger) that you could lean on.

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A born-again experience ensued. Jesus revealed Himself to me (John 14:21). I suddenly discovered His romance. It was literal and real as billed. This experience/journey matched the claims and depictions found in Scripture.

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Lots of people go through this experience, and it's most often connected with a personal crisis or a transitional, insecure life stage. Then the recruiters arrive or perhaps the person returns to the religious tradition of their family, or the dominant one in his or her wider culture. I do not begrudge people their emotional comfort wherever they can get it, but you are going further.You have become so emotionally invested in your religion being "real" that you are attempting to "prove" it through emperical means, which is forever going to be a losing proposition for you.If you start down that path, you have lost the point of faith.

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Those who accuse evangelicals of anthropomorphisizing God need to post their evidence. The record of the written word has God revealing Himself this way, that He created us in His image.

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There was a story on the local news yesterday about a woman who kept showing up at a local car dealership claiming that God told her to go there, and also that God told her that she should have a free car.Throughout the Bible, God speaks directly to people all the time, and even comes to Earth to hang out with humans. Who is to say that God isn't speaking to this woman, or any of the other people who say that God speaks to them?The evidence for the anthropomorphizing of God is all throughout the Bible, especially in the OT.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-10-2004]