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Author
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Topic: What Benefits Are Only Available Through God?
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 232 of 438 (853384)
05-27-2019 7:57 AM
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Reply to: Message 231 by jar
05-27-2019 7:26 AM
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God is all powerful and outside time and space
According to the Bible God is not all powerful and existing outside of time and space. Once again you are simply demonstrating that you have not honestly read the Bible or honestly believe what is written in the Bible. Since you call FY dishonest you need to be answered.
God is Infinite God is all powerful:
Omnipotence means that God is all-powerful or that He has unlimited power....There are many verses in the Bible where God reveals this aspect of His nature. One such verse is Psalm 115:3: “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” Or when answering His disciples' question “Then who can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25), Jesus says, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). God is outside time and space:
Omnipresence means that God is always present. There is no place that you could go to escape God’s presence. God is not limited by time or space. He is present at every point of time and space. God’s infinite presence is significant because it establishes that God is eternal. God has always existed and will always exist. Before time began, God was. Before the world or even matter itself was created, God was. He has no beginning or end, and there was never a time He did not exist, nor will there be a time when He ceases to exist. Again, many verses in the Bible reveal this aspect of God’s nature to us, and one of them is Psalm 139:7-10: “Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Thy hand will lead me, And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.” God's Relationship to Time We lve in a physical world with its four known space-time dimensions of length, width, height (or depth) and time. However, God dwells in a different dimension”the spirit realm”beyond the perception of our physical senses. It’s not that God isn’t real; it’s a matter of His not being limited by the physical laws and dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). Knowing that “God is spirit” (John 4:24), what is His relationship to time? In Psalm 90:4, Moses used a simple yet profound analogy in describing the timelessness of God: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” The eternity of God is contrasted with the temporality of man. Our lives are but short and frail, but God does not weaken or fail with the passage of time. In a sense, the marking of time is irrelevant to God because He transcends it. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:8, cautioned his readers not to let this one critical fact escape their notice”that God’s perspective on time is far different from mankind’s (Psalm 102:12, 24-27). The Lord does not count time as we do. He is above and outside of the sphere of time. God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future. The time that passes on earth is of no consequence from God’s timeless perspective. A second is no different from an eon; a billion years pass like seconds to the eternal God. Though we cannot possibly comprehend this idea of eternity or the timelessness of God, we in our finite minds try to confine an infinite God to our time schedule. Those who foolishly demand that God operate according to their time frame ignore the fact that He is the “High and Lofty One . . . who lves forever” (Isaiah 57:15) . . Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 231 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 7:26 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 235 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 8:31 AM | | Faith has replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 236 of 438 (853392)
05-27-2019 8:40 AM
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Reply to: Message 235 by jar
05-27-2019 8:31 AM
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Re: God is all powerful and outside time and space
Being Himself outside time and space does not mean God cannot operate WITHIN time and space. The whole Bible is a testimony to the fact that He does indeed operate in our dimension while nevertheless being Himself outside all of it. God's Word gives us many accounts of His actions in time and space for the sake of our limited understanding, but we cannot put one part of the Bible in contradiction with another part of it: as long as the accounts exist that speak of His own nature as omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent we know that His interactions in our dimension are given for our sake and not as a definition of His nature. It's God Himself you are accusing of being a "con man," because you fail to read the Bible as a whole in which every part modifies every other part. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 235 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 8:31 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 238 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 9:28 AM | | Faith has replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 240 of 438 (853413)
05-27-2019 11:40 AM
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Reply to: Message 238 by jar
05-27-2019 9:28 AM
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Re: God is all powerful and outside time and space
jar writes: First, man not God, wrote the Bible. Not according to the Bible itself, as held by traditionalists. God authored the Bible by inspiring His chosen men to do the work of putting it to paper under the leading of the Holy Spirit:
2Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. ("prophecy" is another word for messages given by God)
Second, there is no such thing as "The Bible™"; rather there are many different Bibles with the smallest being only 5 books and the largest having over 80 books. The Bible is considered by traditionalists today to be a single whole, composed of 66 separate writings, 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament, all inspired by God and therefore inerrant in their original form, and all consistent with each other, all telling the same story in different ways over the centuries. Some writings were rejected over the centuries as not inspired by God though they may be honored as consistent with the revelation.
Third, there is no evidence that the Bible is "a whole" but rather ALL of the evidence shows it is simply a collection, a compendium of different, often contradictory stories. It is considered a whole by us traditionalists and treated as a whole in our interpretations of it, always regarding every part as modifying and being modified by every other part. Your view is a very unintelligent revision that only misleads you.
It is the "Inerrant Bible" cult that I am calling Conmen, utterly dishonest and divorced from reality. And of course we inerrantists return the compliment. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 238 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 9:28 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 242 by ringo, posted 05-27-2019 11:54 AM | | Faith has replied | | | Message 244 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 12:12 PM | | Faith has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 267 of 438 (853457)
05-27-2019 6:37 PM
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Reply to: Message 242 by ringo
05-27-2019 11:54 AM
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Re: God is all powerful and outside time and space
You can't use the book as evidence for the book. I'm not using it as evidence. I'm pointing out how traditionalists understand it, as a whole in which all the parts fit together and modify each other, and this is demonstrated by Peter's explanation of how messages from God were given "in old time" -- through the Holy Spirit. And this view of it contrasts with jar's view which fragments it into separate books and gives a different length for them which I assume is according to different canons which were developed down the centuries. So in contrast I'm describing how today's traditionalists see it and you can take it or leave it as you are persuaded. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 242 by ringo, posted 05-27-2019 11:54 AM | | ringo has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 268 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 6:59 PM | | Faith has replied | | | Message 276 by ringo, posted 05-28-2019 11:39 AM | | Faith has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 269 of 438 (853462)
05-27-2019 7:05 PM
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Reply to: Message 268 by jar
05-27-2019 6:59 PM
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Re: God is all powerful and outside time and space
As I said, there is jar's view and my view, as far as this forum goes, and you may agree with either of us or neither of us. There is nothing more to say.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 268 by jar, posted 05-27-2019 6:59 PM | | jar has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Re: All praise Her Noodliness
The Bible speaks of actual real places, so therefore you conclude:
So Ireland isn't an actual place? as if he'd said the Bible speaks of ALL actual real places, and you think that's an intelligent remark? It's unbelievably stoopid and as so many such comments are here, time-wasting. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Re: All praise Her Noodliness
Yeah it went over my head too. The leprechaun llne is just too silly. But the Bible is full of history and geography and that does give it authenticity whether you llke it or not which of course you don't because llke most others here you have to destroy Christianity. Which will destroy western civilization too, but that's OK as well I guess.
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 287 of 438 (853544)
05-28-2019 4:35 PM
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Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya (Cush), Canaan, Dead Sea, Red Sea, Tigris and Euphrates, Lebanon, Assyria, Syria, Babylonia, Persia, just a few off the top of my head, and many more under biblical names; Artaxerxes, Nebuchadnezzar, Greece,Rome, Asia Minor, Spain (has a biblical name; it'll come to me), Cyprus, Pilate, Caesar Augustus, Tiberius etc etc etc,
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 294 of 438 (853584)
05-29-2019 10:46 AM
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Reply to: Message 288 by Theodoric
05-28-2019 4:56 PM
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Both the historical and the geographical references are used in the Bible to point to BIBLICAL events, to place them in real time in real places, not secular historical events. That is, the mention of Augustus or Tiberius pins down the time of an event in the llfe of Jesus or the new Church. And the geographical references of course identify the fact that these things occurred in the real world we all know. Christianity did occur in the real world and these facts are markers. This is not true of other religions which are mostly books of instruction in how to llve your llfe. They don't bother about time and place because they have no reason to. But the Bible is all about time and place, it's about real people God chose to carry Him to the rest of us, and it's particularly about Jesus Christ who is God Himself born as a human being in a particular time in a particular place so that He could llve for us and die for us as our Savior from sin. You really don't need to bother to answer because you would only trash these simple facts, completely ignore the point and argue that if the terms aren't used to refer to events described in secular histories, forget it. Even the succession of the empires pointed to in the book of Daniel merely points to their succession. It's a historical fact but you will want something else, because you're a Christianity basher and won't appreciate that the mere reference to these historical and geographical facts authenticates the Bible. Perhaps there are some intelligent people here who will, but I won't hold my breath. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 288 by Theodoric, posted 05-28-2019 4:56 PM | | Theodoric has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 295 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 11:06 AM | | Faith has replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 296 of 438 (853587)
05-29-2019 11:13 AM
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Reply to: Message 295 by Tangle
05-29-2019 11:06 AM
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Where on earth is that piece of hogwash written? The Bible does not indulge in such ridiculous tales, it's all grounded in known history in known places and it doesn't make use of mythical creatures. Sheesh. And it's still true: most of Islam is instruction, and any references to time and place are just puff, with no intrinsic value. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 295 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 11:06 AM | | Tangle has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 301 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 11:59 AM | | Faith has replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 298 of 438 (853589)
05-29-2019 11:19 AM
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Reply to: Message 297 by jar
05-29-2019 11:16 AM
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Re: Still no evidence of ANY benefits available only through God.
Benefits? Eternal llfe isn't enough? Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 297 by jar, posted 05-29-2019 11:16 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 299 by jar, posted 05-29-2019 11:20 AM | | Faith has replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 300 of 438 (853592)
05-29-2019 11:39 AM
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Reply to: Message 299 by jar
05-29-2019 11:20 AM
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Re: Still no evidence of ANY benefits available only through God.
Actually there are huge differences between religions, certainly between biblical religion and the rest of them, but you prefer to pretend there aren't. The OP allows for lack of evidence, and the only evidence possible for the gift of eternal llfe is the testimony of Jesus. Jesus said He came to give us eternal llfe. You don't have to believe Him but that's the benefit He offers us. Take it or leave it. The main focus of the OP is benefits in THIS llfe, however, and I believe there are many but again there wouldn't be any evidence. Answered prayer is a very exciting benefit for instance. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 299 by jar, posted 05-29-2019 11:20 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 311 by jar, posted 05-29-2019 1:43 PM | | Faith has not replied | | | Message 314 by Stile, posted 05-31-2019 9:28 AM | | Faith has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 304 of 438 (853602)
05-29-2019 12:10 PM
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Reply to: Message 301 by Tangle
05-29-2019 11:59 AM
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Mea culpa. Let me correct my statement then to say that the Bible's historical and geographical references are NOT MERELY CIRCUMSTANTIAL AS CLEARLY IS THE CASE WITH ISLAM, THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE AUTHENTICATION OF THE REVELATION. You'll argue that too, no doubt, because there is no utterly specious silly argument that doesn't get used against Christians or conservatives at EvC. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 301 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 11:59 AM | | Tangle has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 309 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 12:20 PM | | Faith has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 306 of 438 (853604)
05-29-2019 12:12 PM
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Reply to: Message 303 by ringo
05-29-2019 12:07 PM
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The Flood has in fact been proven to explain most of the geological record.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 303 by ringo, posted 05-29-2019 12:07 PM | | ringo has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 310 by ringo, posted 05-29-2019 12:23 PM | | Faith has not replied |
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Faith
Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: 10-06-2001
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Message 307 of 438 (853606)
05-29-2019 12:16 PM
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Reply to: Message 305 by Tangle
05-29-2019 12:12 PM
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Re: Still no evidence of ANY benefits available only through God.
What amazing hubris! Everybody else's belief is is inferior to mine. What crap. It simply isn't possible for one to have chosen the one true religion, according to you. Not sure why not. Seems to be just a personal prejudice. Cuz Christianity IS the one true religion, and that's why I chose it. Probably FY too. Others may say the same about other religions but I don't think it's true, I think other religions are chosen because they appeal to something in the personality. Truth isn't the main thing.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 305 by Tangle, posted 05-29-2019 12:12 PM | | Tangle has not replied |
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