This is an interesting, thought provoking discussion. Just hearing from those who don't understand, and maybe don't believe as strongly as others brings up another angle to the discussion.

I don't see it as an insult to question. The answer above is a very good explanation to a few of the questions posed here.

Anonymous wrote:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10)

I think this is a biblical basis for this saying. The idea that struggles imply anything about the sufferer's own inherent strength or weakness is a misinterpretation. Instead, suffering offers a chance to rely on the grace of God. As we draw nearer to Christ, we can be strengthened in Him and borrow His strength to endure our trials with patience and love.

As to the greater discussion, my sect believes that God is NOT omnipotent in the sense of just making up a world and rules for us to follow. He loves us and wants us to be purified and refined that we may dwell with Him and learn about Him, but no unclean thing may dwell with God--we believe that isn't a rule He made up but an irrefutable law inherent in the concept of "goodness" and "God." It is a conundrum any parent can relate to. What He HAS (freedom from sin and misery and sickness and death) He can give us, but what He IS (perfect light and truth) cannot be given, but must be earned. The Garden of Eden offered no sickness or death, no mortal weakness nor temptation. It also offered no freedom to choose. If there is no evil or sin, then there can be no goodness nor righteousness. When Eve partook ofthe Tree of Knowledge, she wasn't punished because God wanted her to suffer for her choice, she was given the inherent consequence of that choice. She introduced into the world the ability to choose, and that means that along with a true understanding of good, we also get evil. The world is no longer static, but mortal. Mortality includes the natural world and all of the sickness, death and decay that are so inherent in that natural order. We are born with a propensity to live as the natural man--selfish, weak, seeking our own gratification and pleasure, but also with The Light of Christ inside each of us and we are given the ability to choose what we become. We can follow Christ and His teachings and our suffering will be sanctified as we are perfected in Him, or we can follow the weakness of men and our suffering will be for nothing.

Wow -- great explanation (fellow Christian speaking)

Anonymous wrote:12:03 please don't leave. I think your words are indeed thought provoking. I love your thoughts about God creating time and space. Too deep! I also understand why you go to the bible to back your opinion because then posters would complain where did you get a thought like that?

Come back! I'm learning a lot from you and nothing from the complainers.

I'd also like you to return. The exchange that led to you leaving happened while I was composing a lengthy post, after having read the link you posted and watched the videos. I'm not bothered by your references to scripture because I see how they inform your viewpoint.

I do agree that you keep citing, basically, the totality of scripture, but you're also making clear points for discussion along the way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about flesh eating bacteria? Where is the free will there?

Now, you're being ridiculous. Again, sin compromised EVERYTHING but that will only make sense if you understand and identify with the consequences of sin and its impact on everything and everybody, warping and creating abnormalities.

Again, it's hard to make sense without understanding the biblical references to the impact of sin. If you are not into the Word, then it is and will always make no sense to a non-believer. But even we believers don't understand everything so we walk by faith, not by sight. You have to decide how you will walk and what you believe.

I'm sorry, but you cannot simply say, "It's a faith thing, you wouldn't understand." These things are debatable, and have been debated for centuries. I'll accept whatever you say is based on faith, so you can say that for you, logic is the work of the devil, and that's a fine reason for not engaging in debate. But you should at least admit to what you're basing on faith.

For example, you say that sin compromised everything, so I return to my question above: does that mean it's your view that without original sin, there would be no earthquakes, ebola, or cancer?

Also, a pp points out that Christ died for our sins and redeemed the world. Why do we still have evil then?

There would not be natural disasters were it not for original sin,
Christ died for all but only those who accept that sacrifice benefit. It is a free gift but you have to accept that gift. That us what the bible teaches.

Because there were no tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes or floods before people rode onto the scene on their tamed dinosaurs. Gotcha.

How do you know there were no tonadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc, before we rode on the scene? I would hazard a guess that dinosaurs were created when all other animals were created but reception on my crystal ball goes in and out at times. Interesting and thought provoking below:

How do we know what God was doing before creation? Time is actually a created entity. The first verse of the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

A study of this verse reveals that God created time, space, and matter on the first day of Creation Week. No one of these can have a meaningful existence without the others. God created the space-mass-time universe. Space and matter must exist in time, and time requires space and matter. Time is only meaningful if physical entities exist and events transpire during time.

“In the beginning . . .” is when time began! There was no time before time was created! Whether hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, existed before people, I can't answer that but this guarantees that God is a God of logic and science. Sorry for deviating on your point. I just can't help myself!

I was going to ask this too. In order to believe that there were no hurricanes or viruses before Eve's temptation, you must believe that the universe before then was some sort of mystical entity, fundamentally different from the time/space/matter continuum in which we now exist. If original sin is responsible for hurricanes and viruses, it cannot be that the first couple of days in the Bible are a metaphor for a billion yeas from the big bang to the emergence of man. Hurricanes and fires come from circumstances inherent in the physical laws of the universe and the conditions on our planet. To have a universe without them you would need different physical laws. Even if somehow original sin so "corrupted everything," as one PP put it, that it changed the nature of the universe fundamentally and retroactively back to the big bang, you would still need a universe with physical laws in which it's possible to have no hurricanes or floods. I have studied this, and the laws of our universe are pretty well balanced. God was a scientist and a mathemetician when he designed it. If you change the physical laws, you wind up with a universe that cannot support the existence of our planet and life.

12:03 please don't leave. I think your words are indeed thought provoking. I love your thoughts about God creating time and space. Too deep! I also understand why you go to the bible to back your opinion because then posters would complain where did you get a thought like that?

Come back! I'm learning a lot from you and nothing from the complainers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about flesh eating bacteria? Where is the free will there?

Now, you're being ridiculous. Again, sin compromised EVERYTHING but that will only make sense if you understand and identify with the consequences of sin and its impact on everything and everybody, warping and creating abnormalities.

Again, it's hard to make sense without understanding the biblical references to the impact of sin. If you are not into the Word, then it is and will always make no sense to a non-believer. But even we believers don't understand everything so we walk by faith, not by sight. You have to decide how you will walk and what you believe.

I'm sorry, but you cannot simply say, "It's a faith thing, you wouldn't understand." These things are debatable, and have been debated for centuries. I'll accept whatever you say is based on faith, so you can say that for you, logic is the work of the devil, and that's a fine reason for not engaging in debate. But you should at least admit to what you're basing on faith.

For example, you say that sin compromised everything, so I return to my question above: does that mean it's your view that without original sin, there would be no earthquakes, ebola, or cancer?

Also, a pp points out that Christ died for our sins and redeemed the world. Why do we still have evil then?

I never post scripture without a biblical reference and sorry when I said we walk by faith, not by sight, I didn't give the biblical references which I have below with a link you might like to read:

2 Corinthians 5:7
http://beliefchangers.com/blog/2011/07/18/the-reason-must-you-walk-by-faith-and-not-by-sight/


For example, you say that sin compromised everything, so I return to my question above: does that mean it's your view that without original sin, there would be no earthquakes, ebola, or cancer?
Yes. It's my opinion based on scripture. Again, I base my opinions based on what I believe and read in scripture, not by my emotions pr feelings (though it's hard sometimes which is why I walk by faith).

***
I am a tiny bit concerned that some of the questions I've seen posted could very well have been answered by simply typing in the question on the internet which, most likely, take you to biblical references. Although, I caution that there are charlatans out there so you have to be discriminating which I discovered eons ago when I first started my journey.***

I now see what you mean by "walk by faith, not by sight." If I understand it correctly, you cannot rely on what you see and instead follow an interior -- something -- you have called faith, through which God will talk to you and tell you what to do. Though it's not in the material you linked above, I take it that you must also not be guided by your emotions and feelings. So it seems to me your overall answer sort of is that logic is the work of the devil. Or at least that to the extent that logic might lead to to something inconsistent with your faith, you have to ignore logic, because faith is God telling you what's right. I'll refer to this as the First Principle.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I hope you can see how this is a bag full of holes. God just doesn't talk to most people in a way that they can understand. Otherwise why would you even need this guy to tell you that? God could tell you himself. Why would you study the bible? God can just tell you what you need to know. In fact, studying the bible sounds suspiciously like trying to initiate faith, which your guy says not to do. I'm guessing that since he makes a special case that hearing is different than seeing, you would say it's okay to listen to people like him with your real ears but also your faith ears, and it's okay to read the bible, which is just another way to hear the words of Christ and get them to your faith ears. But why should you trust any of this -- reading through your physical eyes, hearing through your physical ears, if you really had God whispering in your faith ears all the time.

And even more importantly, let's figure out what exactly this interior thing - "faith" - is. I don't want to use the words "sense" or "feeling," because those things are for the physical world, but it sounds an awful lot like an interior feeling. (As an aside, I wonder why emotions are off the trusted list, they are just as intangible as faith.) I think you would agree that faith is something you choose. You have to decide to not live by your eyes, even though, from all outward appearances, that seems like the most obvious thing to do. (For example, when approaching a cliff I'd use my eyes to figure out whether I'm about to step over, not my faith ears to see whether God's telling me to keep on walking). But assume you're listening and you're not hearing God. How do you know what faith is telling you to do? In fact, how do you even know you should have faith in Christ and not Allah or FSM? After all, you would never have heard of any of them except for someone telling you. And I suspect your friend has some physical world things for your physical world ears to hear about that. Finally, assume you do hear God telling you what to do, and he wants you to walk off a cliff, blow yourself up in a shopping mall, or send money to Jerry Falwell. How do you know it's God and not Satan, or that you're not insane? I'm guessing that you're supposed to trust your faith ears implicitly, without question, because they will never do you wrong. Indeed, Abraham would have sacrificed his own son at God's command.

But if you're willing to acknowledge that people can be wrong about whether God is really speaking to them or not, how can we possibly rely on faith in the way that's suggested? We have to use our real world brain and real world experience, and even our emotions, to know that if I think God's telling me to blow up a supermarket, I'm probably wrong about that and I should get some help.

Anonymous wrote:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10)

I think this is a biblical basis for this saying. The idea that struggles imply anything about the sufferer's own inherent strength or weakness is a misinterpretation. Instead, suffering offers a chance to rely on the grace of God. As we draw nearer to Christ, we can be strengthened in Him and borrow His strength to endure our trials with patience and love.

As to the greater discussion, my sect believes that God is NOT omnipotent in the sense of just making up a world and rules for us to follow. He loves us and wants us to be purified and refined that we may dwell with Him and learn about Him, but no unclean thing may dwell with God--we believe that isn't a rule He made up but an irrefutable law inherent in the concept of "goodness" and "God." It is a conundrum any parent can relate to. What He HAS (freedom from sin and misery and sickness and death) He can give us, but what He IS (perfect light and truth) cannot be given, but must be earned. The Garden of Eden offered no sickness or death, no mortal weakness nor temptation. It also offered no freedom to choose. If there is no evil or sin, then there can be no goodness nor righteousness. When Eve partook ofthe Tree of Knowledge, she wasn't punished because God wanted her to suffer for her choice, she was given the inherent consequence of that choice. She introduced into the world the ability to choose, and that means that along with a true understanding of good, we also get evil. The world is no longer static, but mortal. Mortality includes the natural world and all of the sickness, death and decay that are so inherent in that natural order. We are born with a propensity to live as the natural man--selfish, weak, seeking our own gratification and pleasure, but also with The Light of Christ inside each of us and we are given the ability to choose what we become. We can follow Christ and His teachings and our suffering will be sanctified as we are perfected in Him, or we can follow the weakness of men and our suffering will be for nothing.

You don't have to answer but are you Quaker?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster. You really can't use scripture to justify scripture, and you can't respond to legitimate questions/concerns/criticisms by telling people platitudes like "God loves you" or just study the bible. That's really condescending. It's why fundamentalist Christians get a bad name. Take debate seriously, please.

I have to agree with this. There are some good questions here. The response of "read the bible" or "if you believed.." does nothing. It's actually very condescending.

Do you that on this thread those who don't share the same belief system have accused believers of being condescending because the bible is where we derive our thoughts, appreciations, motivies, belief system? Therefore, you won't accept our reasonings based on our study which makes us incapable of debate. Your way is not the only way.

Now, that is truly condescending on your part. You don't have to believe but a good debater learns about the subject matter to controvert or challenge.

It's as simple as that.

No, not quite. If there is something specific in the bible you want us to see, point it out. Specifically. If there is something about a particular verse you find convincing, explain why. Don't quote scripture and expect us to understand your point, just for scripture's sake. Don't say "read the bible" as if somewhere in its thousands and thousands of words we will just magically back up your point. That's not an answer to someone seeking wisdom.

The point is: debates have rules. You need to have the courtesy to structure your responses so that they actually respond to the points being made. Referencing the totality of scripture or inveighing people to read scripture is unconvincing and actually does your faith a disservice in the long run.

I don't know what more I can do. I have offered opinion but always back up with scripture. It is my belief system. It does not do my faith a disservice in the long run. I consider myself a very reasonable and very open-minded person. (more than I should be according to some of my brethren). But now I am taking this personally. You have belittled my faith, castigated my opinions, and now you accuse me of doing a disservice to my God.

It is obvious you are not looking for answers. You are looking for confirmation from me on your belief system. My comments and responses have been clear and to the point. I have repeatedly said that not only do you need to read scripture, you should use other resources. You want me to do your homework which is what I will not do. I have studied for years, and you want answers wrapped up in a tiny, neat package that suits your purposes for the moment.

I am not a coward nor am I uneducated. I am very much a debater but you want the debate set by your rules which is to dismiss what I understand based on my beliefs. Your negative comments are about my beliefs and not how I use them to debate. It has nothing to do with rules. I have answered every, single comment directly.

I am now finished with this thread. This is going in a direction where using the bible to support opinion is now deemed as a source of contention and not enlightenment.

Finally, we will agree to disagree. I am finished.

OOPS.. missed something. What I generally do when not understanding something like this, is try to hear others own opinions, and use those to mull it over more and see if I can make heads or tails of it.. or if their opinion helps me see something I've missed or... something like that.

Asking questions of those who understand is a good way to learn. It's like a math teacher telling a student to just do the problem again, without further explanation. What I, personally, was looking for was someone to explain in their own words what certain things mean. What I see here is a lot of scripture quotes. Not all of course, but a lot.

It's the same problem I ran into when looking for clarification from church members during discussions. Not debates, discussions.

I don't know how else to explain, so I'll just say that I do believe that people (strong believers) have been handed more than they can handle. I've seen it myself, and heard them admit that they are at their wits end and can handle no more.

And now I'll bow out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, FWIW I have read the bible. Admittedly years ago. Been to bible classes etc. I STILL have questions and doubts. The lack of responses that truly make sense are part of the reason I no longer attend church. I asked for clarification, the response was "find it in your bible." Umm.. yeah. At the time I was asking for clarification on something I had read IN that very same bible.

What I was really looking for at the time was another person's explanation, not another example of a scripture I could read.

Those explanations are out there given by other people. I even mentioned a few that I use because I do question and need other interpretation. However, my belief in God is not questioned. I'm no different than anyone here. I want to know it ALL but that's not going to happen just because I beat on my chest and tell God it's my way or the highway.

If you're not getting it from the bible (most of us including me are like that), than reach out to other sources! You are the same as you were years ago, and the fact that you are still asking means you are not dismissive.

And another thing, just because some body says something (including me), you shouldn't take it as the gospel truth without scriptural reference. You absolutely must do your own research. I take nothing for granted, not even some of the believers posts here.

PP here. meant *You are not the same*

Anonymous wrote:PP here, FWIW I have read the bible. Admittedly years ago. Been to bible classes etc. I STILL have questions and doubts. The lack of responses that truly make sense are part of the reason I no longer attend church. I asked for clarification, the response was "find it in your bible." Umm.. yeah. At the time I was asking for clarification on something I had read IN that very same bible.

What I was really looking for at the time was another person's explanation, not another example of a scripture I could read.

Those explanations are out there given by other people. I even mentioned a few that I use because I do question and need other interpretation. However, my belief in God is not questioned. I'm no different than anyone here. I want to know it ALL but that's not going to happen just because I beat on my chest and tell God it's my way or the highway.

If you're not getting it from the bible (most of us including me are like that), than reach out to other sources! You are the same as you were years ago, and the fact that you are still asking means you are not dismissive.

And another thing, just because some body says something (including me), you shouldn't take it as the gospel truth without scriptural reference. You absolutely must do your own research. I take nothing for granted, not even some of the believers posts here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster. You really can't use scripture to justify scripture, and you can't respond to legitimate questions/concerns/criticisms by telling people platitudes like "God loves you" or just study the bible. That's really condescending. It's why fundamentalist Christians get a bad name. Take debate seriously, please.

I have to agree with this. There are some good questions here. The response of "read the bible" or "if you believed.." does nothing. It's actually very condescending.

Do you that on this thread those who don't share the same belief system have accused believers of being condescending because the bible is where we derive our thoughts, appreciations, motivies, belief system? Therefore, you won't accept our reasonings based on our study which makes us incapable of debate. Your way is not the only way.

Now, that is truly condescending on your part. You don't have to believe but a good debater learns about the subject matter to controvert or challenge.

It's as simple as that.

No, not quite. If there is something specific in the bible you want us to see, point it out. Specifically. If there is something about a particular verse you find convincing, explain why. Don't quote scripture and expect us to understand your point, just for scripture's sake. Don't say "read the bible" as if somewhere in its thousands and thousands of words we will just magically back up your point. That's not an answer to someone seeking wisdom.

The point is: debates have rules. You need to have the courtesy to structure your responses so that they actually respond to the points being made. Referencing the totality of scripture or inveighing people to read scripture is unconvincing and actually does your faith a disservice in the long run.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster. You really can't use scripture to justify scripture, and you can't respond to legitimate questions/concerns/criticisms by telling people platitudes like "God loves you" or just study the bible. That's really condescending. It's why fundamentalist Christians get a bad name. Take debate seriously, please.

I have to agree with this. There are some good questions here. The response of "read the bible" or "if you believed.." does nothing. It's actually very condescending.

Do you that on this thread those who don't share the same belief system have accused believers of being condescending because the bible is where we derive our thoughts, appreciations, motivies, belief system? Therefore, you won't accept our reasonings based on our study which makes us incapable of debate. Your way is not the only way.

Now, that is truly condescending on your part. You don't have to believe but a good debater learns about the subject matter to controvert or challenge.

It's as simple as that.

PP here, FWIW I have read the bible. Admittedly years ago. Been to bible classes etc. I STILL have questions and doubts. The lack of responses that truly make sense are part of the reason I no longer attend church. I asked for clarification, the response was "find it in your bible." Umm.. yeah. At the time I was asking for clarification on something I had read IN that very same bible.

What I was really looking for at the time was another person's explanation, not another example of a scripture I could read.