Opinions and conclusions about Religion and God.

The more I get to know God specifically the worse Religion in general stinks.

Funny you should say that because that is exactly the way I felt when it finally hit me that maybe they weren't all wrong. Not only that but maybe there was a God after all. It was like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
The following years of Bible reading and research just served to deepen this feeling. With God in the equation, everything just fell neatly into place. For a while I became a 'strong' evangelist and actively believed that my argument could convert people. Now I'm a weak one Good. It means that if ever you get to thinking "God hmmm?" again you can exclude all but the faith alone position. The one which holds that your afterlife (as opposed to your afterdeath) is not dependant on what you do in this life. You made my day PY!!

Edited by AdminPhat, : Deleted double post of Iano

The outlook that a person would wish that there was no possible redemption for Hitler at all depresses me. That there be no way possible that his atrocious sins be forgiven by God.It depresses me because the person holding that view desires possibility that their sins be forgiven whilst at the same time denying it another. "The I'm not so bad" defence

More correctly: we don't all get forgiven but forgiveness is available to all. Should a person examining Salvation by Faith Alone conclude that a licence-to-sin goes with a ticket-to-heaven then opening lines of Romans 6 should cause them to pause.There can be justice with absolute forgiveness - so long as someone pays for the sin. Jesus for example There are degrees of sin of course. Pride is hated by God most of all I feel. Sin derives from an old archery expression and is illustrative of "an arrow falling short of the mark" Some of our actions will fall futher from the mark than others. It would be just for very bad sin to be punished more harshly than others. God can add up the total of all your sins and give a punishment that fits the cumulative score of all your "fall a little shorts" and "fall very fars" He has to send you to Hell in order to punish your sin.The question arises as to whether your good counts on the day of Nuremburg. I'm afraid not PY. At least not if you are not saved. The Bible says that you are born enlisted as a soldier in Satans army. Perhaps you are only a corporal or a private 2nd class but in his army you were born. The good you do is done whilst under his command. And you might do good things whilst under that commmand. You might not carry out some of the worst excesses that your comander orders you to do (you look to the absolute body - the Geneva convention and are swayed in your heart by what it says). But it doesn't change the side for who you fight.The only way out is to desert and join the other side. Then your good matters - for instead of standing in the doct, you can share in the spoils of war come VE day.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Justice doesn't care who pays the fine. So long as it is and the money used is legal tender. Justice is otherwise blind That God is the one carries out the actions that result in your salvation is exactly how it is. His action is all that can save you. If you are saved then it is because of his efforts to do so. No credit to you.If you are lost however it is that you have rejected his gospel. Rejected his attempt to point out to you that which you need to knowConsider yourself sliding down a slope to Perdition - for that is what you are on. God reaches out to arrest your fall but your struggle free. He grasps a hold of your hand but you bite it and force him to release his grip. In releasing he is respecting your choice at that point. Occasion after occasion he tries to grasp you. You have free will: you can struggle free of his attempt to save you or you can do nothing - in which case he will get firmer and firmer purchase on you. Slow your descent, halt it - then finally drag you to safety.God saves man / man damns himself

If the person who committed the crime is someone I love I can welcome the opportunity to take their place. My choice. This is not to say I will enjoy the punishment. But that is not the central issue. The central issue is that the case will be closed, punishment for a crime issued and my love for the perp expressedThe perp might be thankful enough not to consider my sacrifice lightly and commit another crime for which he knows I will gladly take the hit for. He might read the start of Romans 6 God said that his justice is served so. If its good enough for him you might take him up on his offer. Or you can insert your own notions about what justice should be and pay the price yourself. In doing so you are ignoring his gospel. Another attempt to grasp you rejected. The good news is that your sense of natural justice is not shared by God. Thank God that it isn't or spit it back in his face He can't make it obvious all along the way - that would interfere with your free will to reject. He operates in an area outside your intellect. In your heart. He grasps through your conscience, through his word, through argument such as this, through nature. He knows your intellect often rejects it - he is not worried about that. But if somewhere in your heart there is something that responds to him then that is what matters. Even if you ignore a call of conscience for example and do the wrong thing - but wish that you hadn't - that is a success. He knows you are tempted, he knows that as a sinner you will do the wrong thing. But he heard your heart "I wish I hadn't done that". Its the person who does the wrong thing and whose heart says "I did the right thing" who has bitten his hand.This is not to say he won't reach again. We all justify our wrong doing. He is listening out for the times when we acknowledge, in our hearts, our wrong doing.Its at the very end of the struggle when the slide has been arrested (if we have let it be arrested) that he can finally reveal to us what it was that halted our descent. It is then we see and kneel.

Thats secular morality for you. And the moral relativism that goes with it. Hitler 'bad', Jane 'good' - according to Jane of course! I'll warrant Hitler had his own views.To the victor goes the definition of morality

It has little to do with the quality of the court. A person who walks into the police station and confesses to a crime will be arrested, questioned (Jesus knows all the details of our crime so makes a perfect confession). He appears before a judge who is only dealing with the evidence - justice is blind. "Guilty your honour" and sentence is passed. There is little else to it - decent court or no. Maybe not first time, or second time, or ever. But it will probably give the perp cause to consider - especially when he sees the punishment inflicted each time. Didn't tell - demonstrated. I'm saved, remember? Free choice to disbelieve he exists? HmmmTake a look at the next beautiful sunset you catch. Take in all the science that is going on in it: the athmosphere, the swallows feeding on the wing, the relative minisculity of mans might represented by the Boeing 747 which is suspended as delicate as a butterfly in the sky.Then suppose the might and power of the person who made it all possible - including your mind which is able to discern it all. Then imagine what effect coming face to face with such stupendous power and majesty might have on you. "Yo God howsit going dude" ? I think not.I think the Bible has a slightly better slant on it in the time when "Every knee WILL bow and every tongue WILL confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" - whether it wants to or not. Don't limit your horizon to Jesus as the gently, humble servant. That is only one aspect to him.

None.And he knows it.And loves you.So did something about it

If Jar is right then you won't know it until the day you die - which is a little bit too late in the proceedings to do anything very much about the consequences of him being wrong.If 'I' am right then you don't have to wait until the day you die to find out. Like you could find out right more or less right now if you were ready too. But I don't know if you are. Only you know that.Now that's a win win situation

They are all logical points. Here is another one for your consideration7. I am working for the right team and irrespective of whether I explain it well or not, you are not able to see it. (1 Cor 2:14)If you are not able to see it then you wouldn't have any evidential reason to pick logical reason number 7. Which doesn't change its chances of being the right reason.A person can explain red to a blind man til they are...er.. blue in the face but unless someone removes the blindfold then they will never see it by explanation.No one was ever explained into salvation. That is not the reason for explaining it.

No sweat. It took me 38 years and my mother 55. Just don't take the die-first-find-out-later Gospels (like the one Jar is peddling) too seriously I'll die a happier man.Later PYEdited by iano, : No reason given.

Not physically unable. Spiritually unable. Technically you have a dead spirit. Born with its heart stopped. You are reliant on his action to resurrect it. He can resurrect you know. The process of that spirit being brought back to life is a series of blasts to the heart from that instrument (the name of it escapes me now) which applies a jolt to the heart. I am not judging you. You cannot help your blindness. You didn't even make yourself that way. I'm just telling you are and that I once was. And I simply point to that which can restore sight. You don't have to believe me, but I have to tell you. It could be an excuse (option whatever) or it could be the truth (option 7) It is not condemning. It is stating the actual position Everybody is born with their spirit clinically dead. Everybody but 1. God want that none should perish but that all would come to repentance (repentance being a change of mind about him or turning towards him) It was no accident. It was a result of a deliberate act of sin by an ancestor of yours. God didn't make it that way it is but he is attempting to do something about it. He even went so far as allowing himself to be crucified. Its a measure of how serious this gig is. If you reject his attempt to save you from the path you are on then you will be judged fairly, be found guilty and condemned to hell. Judgment is only a declaration of the verdict. And you were born guilty. Fair judgement will take into account the level of your guilt and the level of punishment due. It sounds very harsh PY and I am sorry it is that way. Look into your heart and see the sin. You can't see it all but all you have to do is see their is enough to condemn you before a holy God. One for whom any sin is digusting - that is how clean he is.Adultery = looking a woman lustfully. Murder = being angry (in an unright way) with another. We don't think these things are bad. But we are in the company of other sinners so of course we won't think they are badThe blind leading the blind

For every congruant there is an equal and opposite incongruant. See above