[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

"International court’s attack on Israel a sign of the free world’s moral collapse" "Pete Hegseth Is Right for the DOD" "Why Our Constitution Secures Liberty, Not Democracy" Woodworking and Construction Hacks "CNN: Reporters Were Crying and Hugging in the Hallways After Learning of Matt Gaetz's AG Nomination" "NEW: Democrat Officials Move to Steal the Senate Race in Pennsylvania, Admit to Breaking the Law" "Pete Hegseth Is a Disruptive Choice for Secretary of Defense. That’s a Good Thing" Katie Britt will vote with the McConnell machine Battle for Senate leader heats up — Hit pieces coming from Thune and Cornyn. After Trump’s Victory, There Can Be No Unity Without A Reckoning Vivek Ramaswamy, Dark-horse Secretary of State Candidate Megyn Kelly has a message for Democrats. Wait for the ending. Trump to choose Tom Homan as his “Border Czar” "Trump Shows Demography Isn’t Destiny" "Democrats Get a Wake-Up Call about How Unpopular Their Agenda Really Is" Live Election Map with ticker shows every winner. Megyn Kelly Joins Trump at His Final PA Rally of 2024 and Explains Why She's Supporting Him South Carolina Lawmaker at Trump Rally Highlights Story of 3-Year-Old Maddie Hines, Killed by Illegal Alien GOP Demands Biden, Harris Launch Probe into Twice-Deported Illegal Alien Accused of Killing Grayson Davis Previously-Deported Illegal Charged With Killing Arkansas Children’s Hospital Nurse in Horror DUI Crash New Data on Migrant Crime Rates Raises Eyebrows, Alarms Thousands of 'potentially fraudulent voter registration applications' Uncovered, Stopped in Pennsylvania Michigan Will Count Ballot of Chinese National Charged with Voting Illegally "It Did Occur" - Kentucky County Clerk Confirms Voting Booth 'Glitch'' Shifted Trump Votes To Kamala Legendary Astronaut Buzz Aldrin 'wholeheartedly' Endorses Donald Trump Liberal Icon Naomi Wolf Endorses Trump: 'He's Being More Inclusive' (Washed Up Has Been) Singer Joni Mitchell Screams 'F*** Trump' at Hollywood Bowl "Analysis: The Final State of the Presidential Race" He’ll, You Pieces of Garbage The Future of Warfare -- No more martyrdom! "Kamala’s Inane Talking Points" "The Harris Campaign Is Testament to the Toxicity of Woke Politics" Easy Drywall Patch Israel Preparing NEW Iran Strike? Iran Vows “Unimaginable” Response | Watchman Newscast In Logansport, Indiana, Kids are Being Pushed Out of Schools After Migrants Swelled County’s Population by 30%: "Everybody else is falling behind" Exclusive — Bernie Moreno: We Spend $110,000 Per Illegal Migrant Per Year, More than Twice What ‘the Average American Makes’ Florida County: 41 of 45 People Arrested for Looting after Hurricanes Helene and Milton are Noncitizens Presidential race: Is a Split Ticket the only Answer? hurricanes and heat waves are Worse 'Backbone of Iran's missile industry' destroyed by IAF strikes on Islamic Republic Joe Rogan Experience #2219 - Donald Trump IDF raids Hezbollah Radwan Forces underground bases, discovers massive cache of weapons Gallant: ‘After we strike in Iran,’ the world will understand all of our training The Atlantic Hit Piece On Trump Is A Psy-Op To Justify Post-Election Violence If Harris Loses Six Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas, PIJ terrorists Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed Trump's classified docs case, on list of proposed candidates for attorney general Iran's Assassination Program in Europe: Europe Goes Back to Sleep Susan Olsen says Brady Bunch revival was cancelled because she’s MAGA. Foreign Invaders crisis cost $150B in 2023, forcing some areas to cut police and fire services: report Israel kills head of Hezbollah Intelligence. Status: Not Logged In; Sign In Bible Study See other Bible Study Articles Title: My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Source: creation.com URL Source: http://creation.com/my-pastor-doesnt-believe-in-genesis Published: Nov 15, 2014 Author: creation.com Post Date: 2014-11-15 19:23:45 by CZ82 Keywords: None Views: 86057 Comments: 223 My pastors don’t believe Genesis. Should I leave my church? Published: 15 November 2014 (GMT+10) We received the following question from a supporter in Australia who was surprised to discover the pastors of his church did not believe Genesis. Tas Walker talks about some of the issues that need to be considered. "Hi guys, I love your work, and have subscribed to the magazine and am continually encouraged by what you guys publish". "I have a question. I’m at a church which I’ve attended for the last 12 years (I’m now 30). I’ve since realized that none of the 3 pastors take a straightforward reading of Genesis, and at least 2 of the 3 (haven’t yet checked the 3rd) don’t even believe the Flood was global. I was wondering if you had some advice on what I should do about this. I have 2 kids and 1 on the way and I want them growing up in a biblically sound church. Apart from Genesis our church is excellent. Do you think leaving the church is too drastic? Love to get your feedback, thanks heaps"! Tas Walker replies: Thank you for your question about being part of a church where the pastors do not accept Genesis as written. Unfortunately that is more common these days than it should be. The decision as to which church you and your family should belong to depends on many different factors. Here are some issues for you to think and pray about. There is no such thing as a perfect church. In some areas the church may be really good for you but in others it may be totally unhelpful. So you have to balance a lot of factors in your life. There are usually good reasons in your life why you belong to the church you do, but churches change with time. E.g. sometimes the youth ministry is strong and other times it struggles. Your pastoral team will change and that will bring a different dynamic. So, perhaps by waiting you may see things improve. Church is not just about what you can get out of it, but it is a place where you can minister to others with your gifts. Your passion and experience with creation may be one area where you can be a blessing to others. In every church you will have to stand for and speak out the truth, and this can apply to many different issues. In this particular church the issue that you need to bring to others is the truth and foundation of Genesis. But speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. Look at this as an opportunity to share some wonderful truth that otherwise would not be shared. Rather than pushing creation in six days on people as if it is your hobby horse, use it to meet their needs as you become aware of them. Thus, you can present the truth to people along the following lines: “You may find this will help resolve some of your doubts and give you a firm foundation as you follow Christ.” I always take back issues of Creation magazine to church, as well as brochures and DVDs, which I freely give to people as the need arises. Speak the truth in love, with tact and in a winsome way. You may be influential in the thinking and life of your pastors. It’s important to love them and support them. Don’t be divisive or argumentative. Don’t be a one-issue person but show that you are interested in the wider ministry of the church and that your passion is to serve Jesus Christ and to help others come to Him and grow in Him. Here are two examples of how a person in the pews was pivotal in helping their minister come to the truth of Genesis: A young man in a church lent a book to his minister who was big enough to read the book and research the issue and who changed his mind (see Esa Hukkinen interview). This pastor, Owen Butt, believed Genesis was myth but changed his mind after attending a creation meeting, and that changed his whole approach to ministry. What this article does not say is that it was one of his congregation who fed him information and invited him to the creation meeting, where his whole way of thinking was changed (See Catching the vision). Make sure that your family is properly instructed in the truth of Genesis and creation by providing books, DVDs and other resources for them. Talk about the question and issues as they arise. However, note that it is really important to always speak in a positive way about your pastors and your church, especially with your children. If there is a critical spirit and an undermining of your pastors and your church in your home, that will poison things for your children. If the situation becomes very difficult for you, with say the pastors instructing you not to talk about the issue you may need to think about moving. In the same way, you could not accept a ministry offer from the pastors if they included a condition that you could not talk about creation in that ministry or in the church. So if there is a hardening and aggressiveness develops toward your position, say from the pulpit, you may need to think about moving. In our life’s entire journey it is important to seek the Lord and His will for our lives. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5 God bless, Tas Walker Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 170. #1. To: CZ82 (#0) If you don't believe Genesis. Then what exactly would be the reason for Jesus? To redeem us from what? A K A Stone  posted on  2014-11-15   22:03:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #5. To: A K A Stone (#1) If you don't believe Genesis. Then what exactly would be the reason for Jesus? To redeem us from what? There is an answer to your question, and I am willing to answer it for you. There is a completely different way to read the Bible. The traditional way, which came out of traditional Catholic and Orthodox thinking, itself came out of traditional Jewish thinking. After all, all 12 Apostles and Paul were Middle Eastern Jews, from the land of Israel and its environs, by birth and culture. Jesus was too, of course, but he is different because of who his Father was and the special knowledge and power he had. The traditional way of seeing it saw the Christian Church as the continuation of the Jewish revelation. While this is certainly true, the key features of it where that the Apostles and the traditionalists did not simply valorize the revelations of God, but also the particular historical and cultural achievements of Israel. They understood God's plan of salvation in a certain way. To follow the traditional thread of thinking, God made man, man fell, and this fall, this original sin, left an imprint of sin on the character of each man. Because of this sin, man could not attain heaven after death. In order to save man, eventually, God chose one people, the Hebrews, and gave them The Law. The Jews waxed and waned, and did not follow the law perfectly. So God sent Jesus to bring the whole world into salvation. Under the Jewish law, the blood of animals released sin, but could not completely release a man of all of his sins. But with Jesus, baptism wipes away original sin, and the blood of Christ's sacrifice is the final, perfect lamb of the Jewish sacrificial cycle, which takes away the sins of the whole world (and not just the Jews). So, through adoption, the world are all Messianic Jews. The reason for Jesus, under the traditional view, is to redeem us from our sins as laid out under the Jewish law. The assumption is that a perfect adherence to the Jewish Law would have led to salvation, but nobody could do it, and so Jesus was sent to do it for everybody. That's the traditional view, and that view depends on the existence of Adam and Eve as literally described in order to establish the Original Sin that needs to be wiped away. That's the traditional read and understanding. It's what Paul understood he was doing. There is a very different way to read the same text. It too arrives at the necessity of Jesus, doing what Jesus did, with the ultimate net result, but which understands what happened along the way, and the role of the Jews in it, very differently. It takes some time to write out, and engenders tremendous hostility among those who see things through the traditional lens, so I'm not too terrible eager to spend the time to write it out and then get beaten upon. Unfortunately the beatings will happen, because writing out what others believe without criticizing it leaves the impression that one advocates that, because people become furious at anything they perceive as a challenge to their traditional beliefs. If you really want to understand how people of good faith and sincerity can think Jesus is vital to salvation without accepting the Adam and Eve or Flood stories as literal, I am willing to go ahead and write it out. But I'm not too eager to deal myself a crap sandwich, and that's what experience tells me I'm going to get if I start actually talking about these things. So you tell me, do you really want to know the answer to your question? And are you willing to hear the answer without ripping my head off? Vicomte13  posted on  2014-11-17   11:12:23 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #7. To: Vicomte13 (#5) So you tell me, do you really want to know the answer to your question? And are you willing to hear the answer without ripping my head off? Sure go for it. You are a man of honor. But if there was no Adam and Eve to bring sin into the world. What exactly would be the purpose of Jesus if Adam and Eve were made up. I know it is repetitive of the above. A K A Stone  posted on  2015-01-13   14:59:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #23. To: A K A Stone, Don, SOSO (#7) So you tell me, do you really want to know the answer to your question? And are you willing to hear the answer without ripping my head off? Sure go for it. You are a man of honor. But if there was no Adam and Eve to bring sin into the world. What exactly would be the purpose of Jesus if Adam and Eve were made up. I know it is repetitive of the above. Your question, and Don's, and SOSO's comment to me... I'm going to take the time to write a careful, comprehensive and clear answer. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-14   11:10:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #27. To: Vicomte13, A K A Stone, Don, SOSO (#23) Your question, and Don's, and SOSO's comment to me... I'm going to take the time to write a careful, comprehensive and clear answer. Thanks, I believe that this will be a worhwhile endeavor for the interested. May I suggest two therads be started: Why Genesis? and Just Genesis. The former addressing the question of why did God create the Heavens and Earth and Man, the latter the biblical account of Genesis as historical fact and/or meaning. Obvioulsy both why and how of creation have an impact on how one views and accepts the teachings of the Bible. Frankly I expect that the former thread would have a very short existenace as the bottom line is no-one knows why God rolled up His sleves in a creation mode. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-14   17:54:43 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #33. To: SOSO (#27) (Edited) May I suggest two therads be started: Why Genesis? and Just Genesis. The former addressing the question of why did God create the Heavens and Earth and Man, the latter the biblical account of Genesis as historical fact and/or meaning. Obvioulsy both why and how of creation have an impact on how one views and accepts the teachings of the Bible. Frankly I expect that the former thread would have a very short existenace as the bottom line is no-one knows why God rolled up His sleves in a creation mode. I know why God filled up the sky and the land: because he wanted to. There is nothing more to it than that. God does what he wants. Why do YOU like, say, blue things? Because you do. You prefer it because you prefer it. So it is with God. God is God. He doesn't have a "reason" as such, that "causes" him to "have to" do something or aim at a result. He's God. He does what he does because it pleases him to do so - a painter on a blank canvas. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-14   21:38:54 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #35. To: Vicomte13 (#33) I know why God filled up the sky and the land: because he wanted to. There is nothing more to it than that. God does what he wants. Well, OK then. God does as He jolly well pleases and we, His creations, can just run around arguing about not only what He did, or if He did, but why He did. It all makes perfect sense now. God does not need to communicate to us a purpose for our existence, and we shouldn't expect to have one, much less ask Him. Thanks for clearing that up. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-14   21:50:40 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #38. To: SOSO (#35) Well, OK then. God does as He jolly well pleases and we, His creations, can just run around arguing about not only what He did, or if He did, but why He did. It all makes perfect sense now. God does not need to communicate to us a purpose for our existence, and we shouldn't expect to have one, much less ask Him. Thanks for clearing that up. Well, that is the way it is. God is God. The Scriptures do record what God said - the rules he laid on us (there are not many). He's free, and he made us to rule over this place. And that's the extent of it. That's what we know, and that's all we know. We can just make shit up and ascribe it to God, if we want to, but when we do that, it's not true. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-14   22:32:11 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #39. To: Vicomte13 (#38) We can just make shit up and ascribe it to God, if we want to, but when we do that, it's not true. On this I totally agree. But its human nature to inquire, to want to know why. And isn't God that bestowed that nature upon us? At times it seems that He has a cruel sense of humor. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-14   22:39:55 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #43. To: SOSO (#39) And this, ultimately is the question - not just for you but for every man who enters into such a discussion: are you really looking for answers - do you really want to know if there is tangible proof of God, and if it is said that there is, are you ready to look at the proffer scientifically with an unbiased mind? If so, you can learn much. Or are you a man who has in fact really already made up his mind, are certain that there's no such proof, that such proof cannot really exist, that anything shown as proof can and surely will be exploded by simply applying reason to it? Are you already certain that no satisfactory answers to your questions exist, or ever will exist? In other words, are your questions real questions that are truly searching for something, or are they rhetorical, leading questions whose answers you are already sure you know? The answer to these questions of intent determine whether any conversation is worthwhile. This question is important from the perspective of someone like me, who might or might not be willing to expend the effort to try to answer the questions. I am happy to bring my proofs to a real court, but it's a waste of time, worse than useless, to bring them before a kangaroo court. I've been before many kangaroo courts, and usually see them constituted. And the men who sit on them who sit in pre-judgment of all that would be brought before them are dull and foolish and not worth my time. Men with open minds who believe that maybe the questions CAN be answered, at least somewhat, and who are willing to find out: they are worth the time. Me, personally, I had to start with the tangible proofs of God. Without the proofs, without the knowledge certain THAT God is, I could see no point in investing the time necessary to really try to understand what he had to say or wanted of me. I am a man, and I give other men the courtesy of believing them to be exactly like me: wanting proof. I also give them the courtesy of believing them to be like me in being honest, at least with themselves, and earnestly seeking proof. I believe that any honest, intelligent, scientifically-educated man who studies the tangible proofs God left us will come face to face with the reality of the existence of God. And that changes the nature of scientific inquiry, because it removes many question marks. It makes new questions important, such as: Ok, God IS, but WHO is he? And what does he WANT of me (if anything). The tangible artifacts answer the first question completely. But then the trail goes cold. Then you have only two choices: God tells you directly, or you have to read accounts of other people telling you what God said to them. In the latter case, you have to compare what other men claim God said to them to the physical artifacts. If the claims of men contradict the physical proofs, then you have a choice to make: reject the physical proof that your own eyes can see, or reject the claims of men that contradict them. Me? I follow the second course. Then, if one has found a set of words that one believes contains words from God, one has to read and parse those words carefully, to see what they say and who they claim said what. It's worth the effort if God is, and if God spoke that way. It's an utter waste of time if God isn't. "Just believe that God is and go straight to the text" is an approach that works for some. Some of them are Christians. Some are Jews. Some are Muslims. Some are Hindus. Some are Bhuddists. They all contradict and they all have their books of words in which they believe, without anchoring in tangible proof. But words are wind, and if they don't come from God, they come from man. So I myself, personally, have to start with the tangible proof. Of course, I DIDN'T start with the tangible proof. In point of fact, my starting position was that no such tangible proof could possibly exist. I wasn't a skeptic, I was a cynic. So where I actually started was with revelation: God grabbed my face and threw me around and spoke to me. And showed me things. And visited often. And so did demons. I saw the Dove. I saw the City. I was plunged into the black Abyss. I found these experiences impressive, so I looked for tangible proofs to corroborate that I was in fact speaking with spirits and not just bat-shit crazy. There is a lot of tangible proof left by God, all of it quite astounding and quite impossible. So, God is. All of the tangible proof is Christian in nature. The informational content of the objects and artifacts are miraculous, and they present some Christian fact or simply are of Christians. If there were any counterexamples from any OTHER religion, there would be a competition of ideas, but there aren't. Every miraculous, science-defying artifact is Christian in content - every single one. I've identified about six dozen of them. The other religions have no entries in the game. So, personal revelation is corroborated by miracle, and all of the miracles - all of the cornucopia of artifacts left by God - are Christian in nature. Therefore God is the God of Christ, and all of the other religions are false or incomplete. Therefore there's no point in studying anything but Christianity. But there are 6000 squabbling, irritable Christianities, so maybe the answer is not to study Christianity, but to keep eyes focused on God. Ok, so, the artifacts are Christian miracles from God - where in Christianity does God speak directly? In written Scripture, and in some claimed revelations of saints. Since I've spoken to God, and what God and I spoke of is not Scripture, I know that God certainly DOES speak to people and perform miracles today, and did not stop doing so in the First Century. There's a made up tradition that says the opposite, but words are wind. I've experienced miracles, so arguments that God doesn't do that sort of thing anymore are lies. They're not just errors, because there was no basis for making the error: they are positively asserted lies by men seeking to privilege their particular power, gained by their learning. It would be great for them if God were so easily contained. But he isn't, and he said not to lie, so actually they're in duck soup and considerable danger, because of their own stubborn and foolish insistence on the authority of stories they made up out of wholecloth. Now then, proceeding on, God didn't say much to me, really. Lot's of repetition about specific points. The content of the artifacts says that God is, and Christ is divine. So what can we do? Well, we can look at the words of men who claim God spoke to them - both in the claims of saints since the First Century, and in the canonized claims of those from the First Century and before. And there, we can find a set of words, attributed to God directly, about 8% of Scripture and a few more sentences from claims of saints, embedded in a whole lot more verbiage that may or may not be true. The artifacts vouch for the God speaking in Scripture, so you look at what HE said DIRECTLY, first. Then you compare THOSE words to the rest of the words, and you find conflicts. You don't find conflict between God and himself, but there IS conflict between what God said directly, and what men said ABOUT God, both in Scripture and without. And then you have to make a choice. Well, me? I know God is, because I've spoken to him. And I know there's a Devil too - I've seen a demon. I know who God is from the artifacts. And I know what God said directly because it's recorded. So, THAT'S reliable. And then there's the rest of it. Where is agrees, that's good. Where it conflicts, well, there's a choice to be made, and 100% of the time I go with what God said directly, and I disregard or diminish in importance what some other man wrote that contradicts what God said directly out of his own mouth. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God." - Jesus, speaking to Satan. Seems pretty obvious, when you look at it all as a whole. So, if I've got God saying that he sends good and evil, but I've got some Psalmist saying that God is only good and never does evil, well, the Psalmist is wrong. All Scripture may be God breathed, but it's not all of equal authority. And it's only the fact of the reality of God that gives Scripture authority in the first place. The lack of concrete tangible evidence for the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita leave them unsubstantiated, but when contrasted with the presence of such concrete tangible evidence for the Christian Gospel only, the relative presence and lack of evidence proves the truth of the Christian Gospel and the falsity of the rest. That's how it all hangs together. We can talk about each piece, or not. It depends entirely on the mental attitude of the ones who wish to speak. If there is real interest and an open mind, then good. But if the interlocutor has a closed mind, Jesus said not to cast pearls before swine. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-14   23:24:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #45. To: Vicomte13 (#43) And this, ultimately is the question - not just for you but for every man who enters into such a discussion: are you really looking for answers - do you really want to know if there is tangible proof of God, and if it is said that there is, are you ready to look at the proffer scientifically with an unbiased mind? I may be fooling myself but I believe that this is what I have been doing since I started religous instruction when I was about six years old or so. But when I was a child a spoke as one.....yadadayadadayada....you know the rest of the line. "Seems pretty obvious, when you look at it all as a whole." And that is exactly the place to whence I came well over 50 years ago. And I have tested that position over and over and over again with each input of new data or observation or instruction or experience and continue to come to the same point. That is why I still have an unabiding belief in God and not so much for any church or those men that claim to know His mind or speak for Him. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-14   23:32:49 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #50. To: SOSO (#45) I may be fooling myself but I believe that this is what I have been doing since I started religous instruction when I was about six years old or so. But when I was a child a spoke as one.....yadadayadadayada....you know the rest of the line. And that is exactly the place to whence I came well over 50 years ago. And I have tested that position over and over and over again with each input of new data or observation or instruction or experience and continue to come to the same point. That is why I still have an unabiding belief in God and not so much for any church or those men that claim to know His mind or speak for Him. Well, then, good! That moves all the freight, and we can come down to the brass tacks. We both know God is. We both know that the Father is God of all, and that Jesus is divine. We both know that Jesus told us that we have to follow him to be acceptable to the Father, and that to follow him we have to do what he said. So, what did he say? Well, we know that there's a cut, a judgment, and that some pass it and enter into the City of God, and others are left outside and/or thrown into the Lake of Fire. We know that within the City there will be different distinctions, greater or lesser, based on what each person did or didn't do in life. Everybody who passes judgment gets a room, but everybody doesn't get a throne and a crown. In this sense it's sort of like high school: those who graduate are going to go on to other things. The ones who did best will have the best colleges and jobs. The ones who did less well will have correspondingly dimmer prospects, but still be better off than the guy dying of malaria in a swamp in Bangladesh. So, the first big cut, the dividing line, is what will cause you to fail judgment and be thrown into the fire. Jesus gave a handy list, twice repeated on the last two pages of the Bible: If you've killed people, committed adultery, or sexual immorality, or been abominable (which includes some other forms of sexual immorality), or been a liar, or an idolator, or a drug trafficker, or a coward, you're not going to pass judgement and are going to be thrown into the lake of fire UNLESS you're forgiven. And what must you do to be forgiven? Well, some Christians say "Believe in Christ", but Christ said "What good does it do you to say you believe in me if you don't do as I say?" In other words, believing that Christ is the Son of God is not sufficient to be forgiven your sins. Who says? Christ says. Some men say otherwise. They're wrong. Once they've been show what Christ said, as here, if they persist anyway, they're peddling lies. But what, then, did Christ say you have to do if you've committed any of those sins, to be forgiven them? He gave only one way: you have to forgive the sins and offenses that other men have done to you. That's it. That's all. Nothing more is required, but nothing less will do either. Christ said that if you forgive men their sins against you, God will forgive your sins against him, but that if you don't forgiven other men, then neither will God forgive you. That's what Christ said, and he was the Son of God and the one who has to be followed, so whoever disagrees is wrong and should be silent and change himself to follow Christ. And that is the whole religion, really. That is ultimately what you have to do to pass judgment. Beyond that, to enjoy high status in the City of God, well, for that you have to be an exemplar of Christ's virtues. I think it's important to start with the most basic of basics: be baptized, eat bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus, don't commit any of those deadly sins, and if you have, then repent, ask forgiveness, and forgive other men all of their sins against you. That's the whole thing. The rest is detail and opinion. Not much to it, when you get right down to it. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-14   23:54:54 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #51. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter (#50) And what must you do to be forgiven? Well, some Christians say "Believe in Christ", but Christ said "What good does it do you to say you believe in me if you don't do as I say?" In other words, believing that Christ is the Son of God is not sufficient to be forgiven your sins. Who says? Christ says. Some men say otherwise. They're wrong. Once they've been show what Christ said, as here, if they persist anyway, they're peddling lies. But what, then, did Christ say you have to do if you've committed any of those sins, to be forgiven them? He gave only one way: you have to forgive the sins and offenses that other men have done to you. That's it. That's all. Nothing more is required, but nothing less will do either. Christ said that if you forgive men their sins against you, God will forgive your sins against him, but that if you don't forgiven other men, then neither will God forgive you. That's the whole thing. The rest is detail and opinion. Not much to it, when you get right down to it. Ah, but we both know that the devil is in the details.....don't we. Wouldest your description of redemption be that simple. Perhaps God knows that it is and looks crossed eyed on those that don't see it that way. Man, through organized religions, has sure distorted things. I like your posit. It is clean. It is simple. It explodes the need for a Church and scores of versions of the Bible that each claim supremacy. BTW, you left out a very important first step, namely faith and how one comes to it. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   11:29:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #64. To: SOSO (#51) Wouldest your description of redemption be that simple. Perhaps God knows that it is and looks crossed eyed on those that don't see it that way. Man, through organized religions, has sure distorted things. I like your posit. It is clean. It is simple. It explodes the need for a Church and scores of versions of the Bible that each claim supremacy. BTW, you left out a very important first step, namely faith and how one comes to it. "Faith" can mean two things: TRUST in God, or mere BELIEF in God. I went on and on about how one can come to strong BELIEF that God exists: through the physical, examinable artifacts, the concrete miracles left to that purpose. Trust is an entirely different thing, though. After all, the Devil and all the demons KNOW God EXISTS, but they don't obey him. Men certainly can know that God exists. I do in two ways: I've spoken with him, seen angels and demons and places and experienced dramatic physical miracles. There is no question in my mind that God exists. If there WERE a question in my mind, then it would be like questioning whether water exists, or gravity, or daylight. Direct experience is knowledge certain. For the benefit of those who have not seen, touched and heard, I've gone and compiled the list of miracles that God left that can be forensically examined and seen to be physics-breakers. They're all clearly miraculous, and they're all Christian. So, with a basic scientific education and the time and inclination to study, anybody who has not seen God directly can have the proof of God's EXISTENCE right before his eyes. And not just his EXISTENCE, but his identity. But that's as far as that goes. What God WANTS of you, well, unless he tells you directly and unmistakeably, that knowledge can only come through a combination of conscience, which is God's breath within, and learning. Learning WHAT? Well, the only place one CAN look to see what the Christian God directly said is the Scriptures, so you have to look at THAT. And then it's important to look at what GOD HIMSELF said, directly, in the Bible. About 8% of the words in the Scriptures are directly spoken by God, and THOSE words are quite consistent through the text. So, that's how you can know what God wants. That's where my "short list" was drawn. But even if you know God is, know WHO God is, and know what God wants, you still have to trust that if you limit yourself in the important ways that God said, that you will reap the rewards he promises after death. That is faith: not belief, but trust. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-15   13:36:15 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #66. To: Vicomte13 (#64) Trust is an entirely different thing, though. I have maintained that the nature of Man's original sin was not disobiebence but a lack of trust in God. "Well, the only place one CAN look to see what the Christian God directly said is the Scriptures, so you have to look at THAT." Which translation of which version of which interpretation of which translation is the one true Scripture? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   13:48:14 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #79. To: SOSO (#66) Which translation of which version of which interpretation of which translation is the one true Scripture? A translation is but an echo. The Hebrew Dead Sea Scroll texts in Ivrit characters are the Hebrew Scriptures. To the extent that the texts are missing, then a comparison of the Hebrew Leningrad Codex with the Koine Greek Codex Vaticanus gives the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. A comparison of the Patriarchal Text and the Codex Vaticanus gives the best New Testament text. The one is in ancient Hebrew. The other is in Koine Greek. The best translation of both is the Vulgate Latin, because Jerome had access to massive amounts of ancient manuscript material lost to time, because the Church was not then divided in the way it has become since, because he was a genius, because Latin and Greek were both languages of the same milieu in the same culture, and because Jerome lived in the same Roman Empire as Jesus and the Jews had, with the same laws and cultural references and contexts, and he spoke Greek and Latin as a fluent native speaker. So, he had manuscripts, and he was a native speaker of the Greek he was translating. He compared the Hebrew and the Greek and found the Hebrew HE was looking at to be more persuasive than the Greek. Latin is even closer to us than Greek or Hebrew, but it's still a translation. Truth be told, there are only about 20 words in Scripture upon whose definitions everything turns. If one translates those words wrong, if one mangles the concept being conveyed, then one will come to a decidedly different place from what was actually expressed. Most English translations are reasonably good, if those key words are properly understood. When those words are misunderstood, then wildly different theologies emerge. And the words that matter most are the 8% or so in there directly spoken by God himself, for "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God." The words that proceeded forth out of the mouth of God are not many, but they give all the law, and they are the ones you absolutely have to focus on, or you can end up anywhere. What God said in Scripture doesn't conflict, but what men say ABOUT what God said in Scripture often conflicts. Those conflicts are not resolvable by pitting men against men, but they ARE resolvable by going to the words that proceeded forth directly out of the mouth of God. God said altogether less to men than men said ABOUT God to each other. The stuff men said ABOUT God is inspiring and inspired, but it's not LAW. What God said directly: that (and only that) is law. That is where your Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English studies need to focus, and most specifically on those 20 words. Understand what "life" IS, and you understand what is at stake throughout. Miss that, and you're flailing around trying to figure out how all of those various purity laws of the Jews, so important for their society as God constituted it, apply to you and me...and unfortunately you've only God Jews like Paul and John and James and Peter to guide you on those matters, and they focus on them in ways that resolve problems within Judaism that Gentiles don't have in the first place. The purpose should never be to find ways to quibble with fellow Christians, but rather, to discern just what precisely God said. And then do THAT. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-15   17:21:19 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #82. To: Vicomte13 (#79) Truth be told, there are only about 20 words in Scripture upon whose definitions everything turns. If one translates those words wrong, if one mangles the concept being conveyed, then one will come to a decidedly different place from what was actually expressed. Awfully sloppy of God, wouldn't you say? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   17:42:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #92. To: SOSO (#82) Awfully sloppy of God, wouldn't you say? No. God said what he said. That men wrote down a bunch of words all around it and that other men hold the different sources of authority as being equal, when they are not, is not sloppy of God at all. GOD said "Man lives by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God." And what is more, when it comes to those few decisive words, God not only used the words, but the words are written in ancient Hebrew Ivrit PICTOGRAPHS, which don't just convey sound but meaning. So we can read the meaning, hearing the meaning and SEE the meaning corroborated by the pictures. God didn't really say all that much - only 8% of Scripture, and if you eliminate all of the ritualistic stuff that God said to the Hebrews that don't apply to anybody, it drops to less than 1%. Usually things are repeated three or four times, so that distills down to about 0.25% of the words in the Scriptures. If there are 2000 pages in the Bible, there are about 4 pages of original, directive law that apply to everybody, and just about everybody already knows that law anyway, because it's not just written on the pages - in triplicate or sextuplicate, but because it's written in everybody's conscience, as we are each a separate breath of God (breath is spirit). None of this is meant to trivialize the wisdom of what is contained in the longer canon. Still, for somebody like you, who sees a welter of confusion and contradiction, I think it is important to realize these things: (1) God left about 100 tangible objects that are miracles of physics, and that are clearly Christian in nature. And he left precisely 0 miraculous objects that are any other religion in nature, or secular in nature. So, through your physics, chemistry and biological training you CAN, if you are willing to apply the effort, come to a purely intellectual knowledge of the existence of God, and the divinity of Jesus. This is demonstrable by the physics and does not require a leap of belief beyond believing that our physics are largely accurate and useful, and that the data you have been given is not itself all tricked and hoaxy. (2) With knowledge certain of God, and of the divinity of Christ, you can look at what it is recorded that God said - and you can see God saying in his own words to listen to HIS words. So then if you go through Scripture, you'll have about 160 pages. You'll see its repetitive and be able to distill it down to 4 applicable pages, in any translation. (3) With those four pages, you can then delve into the Hebrew and Greek for the key words about which all meaning hangs: "God", "spirit", "life", "eternal", "good", "bad", "love", "law", "soul", "follow". (4) After this exercise, you'll know the law, and you'll know that it's: Don't shed human blood, don't eat living flesh, don't commit sexual immorality (including adultery or other vile or abominable practices), don't lie, don't practice pharmakeia, don't serve idols, and don't be a coward. If you do those things, you'll be thrown into the fire and fail judgment. If you don't, you'll pass judgment. If you've done some of those things but follow Jesus by stopping doing them, and forgiving others their sins against you, God will forgive you. If you don't believe that Jesus is divine, you won't in fact stop doing the bad things or forgive, and you won't love, unless Jesus sends God's spirit to you anyway. In this way, it's Jesus who saves all whom he saves, regardless of the differences in their view of him. (5) Life can be long, so practice loving living, in Christ's model, and you will have your reward from God in the City of God and in Paradise after death, and maybe on earth too. And that's all there is to it. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-15   18:19:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #101. To: Vicomte13 (#92) If there are 2000 pages in the Bible, there are about 4 pages of original, directive law that apply to everybody, and just about everybody already knows that law anyway, because it's not just written on the pages - That's an awful lot of bloviating by the men the inked the Bible. "Still, for somebody like you, who sees a welter of confusion and contradiction, I think it is important to realize these things: The only confusion that I see is what has been put there by man, not God. You admit as much but take a lot more words to to it. "Don't shed human blood, don't eat living flesh, don't commit sexual immorality (including adultery or other vile or abominable practices), don't lie, don't practice pharmakeia, don't serve idols, and don't be a coward. If you do those things, you'll be thrown into the fire and fail judgment. So Ghandi is in Heaven as is every good orthodox Rabbi and every good person that has not done those things. Great, that's what I always believed. BTW, I had to look up the word pharmakeia:) Is aspirin included? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   18:55:23 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #109. To: SOSO (#101) So Ghandi is in Heaven as is every good orthodox Rabbi and every good person that has not done those things. No shedding of blood, or eating living flesh, or serving idols. Probably many have met those conditions. No sexual immorality? I doubt that there are any normal, healthy people who have not committed sexual immorality. So that's that, then. Without forgiveness by God, everybody but autistic vegetables and cripples gets thrown into the fire because all human beings are normal sexually immoral at some point. No lying? That catches anybody who says he's never been sexually immoral. Don't be a coward? Cowardice leads to lies and to the shedding of blood, so it's part of a process. Aspirin is not pharmakeia: it doesn't significantly alter the mind. Coffee isn't either. Tobacco is bad for you, but it's not pharmakeia. Alcohol isn't, but it's in its own category - necessary for salvation (gotta drink the blood), but necessary to limit. I suppose it's like sex - with your wife: good. With every woman on the street, or with one donkey: bad. If you can't drive under its influence, it's probably pharmakeia. Of course, it's not simply use, it's use to alter the mind, let in the demons...or offering it for sale to do that. Still, it's a quibble. Dealing in death-dealing drugs will get you damned. The prohibitions on sexual immorality and lying probably devour all of healthy humanity. So, we're all doomed to death for our sins. And guess what - we all die! Crime...punishment. THEN what? Well, that's the issue. Death CAN be the punishment that cuts it off: sentenced to death for sin and executed by God - for the wage of sin is death, but life of the spirit goes on, and you get another body someday...which promptly gets judged and killed AGAIN, unless you are forgiven the sin. There is debate among men as to how. There shouldn't be, because Jesus SAID how. God's forgiving, but step one is STOP DOING IT (whatever IT is). If you don't stop doing it, once you know you should (and we know we should from the beginning, because God gave us all a conscience), if you persist until death - prognosis not good. Step 2 is: forgive other people. You're forgiven, by God, for your offenses against him, to the extent that you forgive others' offenses against you. The extent you refuse to do that, you're not forgiven either. Also, we ought to remember that the status in the City of God of everybody who passes judgment is not the same. There are the least in "Heaven" (really the City). They're THERE, but they're the least. It's better than the lake of fire, but still... Strive for better and you can have better. Or do the minimum and sweep the streets. It's better than burning. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-15   19:27:29 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #116. To: Vicomte13 (#109) No sexual immorality? Without forgiveness by God, everybody but autistic vegetables and cripples gets thrown into the fire because all human beings are normal sexually immoral at some point You forgot the repentence aspect of forgiveness. Most (I would hope) people of otherwise healthy morality and intergity, recognize the immorality of certain sexual acts and are truly regretful for their earthly, human weakness in their soul where God resides. The same is true about cowardice, be it physical or moral cowardice. "God's forgiving, but step one is STOP DOING IT (whatever IT is)." Do you not see the inherent contraction, conflict with this statement and yours of "The prohibitions on sexual immorality and lying probably devour all of healthy humanity." You are advocating a position that on one hand states that the God given nature of man is to sin (at least these two specific sins) and His requirement that we stop sinning period if we want to dance with Him in Heaven on the other hand. Please don't clap as that would be the irrestible force meeting the immovable object. I remind you that God created man knowing fully well that Original Sin was just around the corner. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. Do you really believe that God will punish a man because He created the nature of man to succumb to sin and man cannot overcome that nature? It is one thing for man to "say, yeah, I know it's wrong but so what" and entirely another to say "yes, I know it's wrong and I will earnestly try to stop doing it". We all sin. Most of us are repentful but relapse. Many seek absolution and all of those wind up sinning again. God cannot be that cruel as to set man against hinself in that manner and hold him accountable for it with an impossible condition to fulfill. The act of contrition IMO is enough even if the flesh is too week to keep it. As long as that earnest contrition is within a person IMO God will forgive. The honest striving is enough. Only God knows what is in a man's heart. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   21:25:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #122. To: SOSO (#116) You forgot the repentence aspect of forgiveness. Au contaire. I wrote: "God's forgiving, but step one is STOP DOING IT (whatever IT is)." "Repent" means "turn back", from sin - stop sinning. I didn't forget about repentance: I put it front and center. When Jesus began his public ministry, the first thing he said was "Stop Sinning" ("Repent"). The other aspect of forgiveness, as Jesus himself preached it, was that human sins against God are forgiven if, and only if, and only to the extent, that humans forgive other humans their sins. "As you measure, so shall you be measured." These were Jesus' main teachings on the subject: God will forgive your sins, but you need to stop doing it, and to the extent you have sins, you need to be forgiven. And to be forgiven, you have to forgive. That's what Jesus said. He said it plain. He didn't give some other formula, so that's the formula. He said men are judged by their deeds, repent, stop sinning, and if you want to be forgiven, then forgive others: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Not much to argue with there: those are the commandments. It's not even particularly hard. The answer to your question is stop sinning. And if you can't or don't, then be very forgiving. You wrote about "Original Sin", but these words are not in Scripture. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-15   22:51:50 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #124. To: Vicomte13 (#122) You wrote about "Original Sin", but these words are not in Scripture. But the act is amply described, as is the consequences to Adam and Eve and their progeny. A rose by any other name my friend. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-15   23:03:40 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #164. To: SOSO (#124) But the act is amply described, as is the consequences to Adam and Eve and their progeny. A rose by any other name my friend. Not so. Read it again. Adam is told that if he eats of the fruit, he will die. Eve recounts to Satan that she has been told this too. They ate the fruit. God told Adam that he was dust (literally: powder), and to dust he would return. And Scripture tells us he did, dying at the age of about 930 (if I remember correctly). Scripture doesn't tell us when Eve died, though we can assume she did...unless she was one of the wives on the Ark, which seems exceedingly unlikely. So, God told them that if they ate the fruit they would die. And Scripture recounts the death of Adam. You, and tradition, say that God said that their progeny would die because of that. That is the way that man has explained death. But God never said that. Go read Genesis again. God never said: you shall die, and your children after you, if you eat the fruit. In fact, God never says that in Scripture. God says: the wages of sin is death. And all men sin. That is why you die: you die, because that is the death sentence for YOUR sins. Paul explained that death came into the world because of the sin of Adam, but we don't die because of HIS sin. We die because of OUR sins. Note well that innocent babies die because of sin too. Not because of THEIR sins, but because the sin that other men commit is murdering them. Abel pleased God with his offering, so Cain murdered him. Abel wasn't dying for his OWN sins - his death WAS the sin (one of the sins) of Cain. Those who die innocent of sin - babies and the like - have no sins to answer for at judgment, and Jesus said repeatedly and unwaveringly that men are judged by their DEEDS. No bad deeds, no personal sin. Anybody who has lived very long has personal sin, and so is under a sentence of physical death, which God will carry out. How does this link to Adam? Directly, but not because of a mystical taint of death that passes down in the blood. That is human tradition and it is not what God said. Rather, it has to do with something else that you said about human temptations. There are indeed human temptations, and they lead to sin. But what leads to many of these temptations are the living conditions of men, and these living conditions are NOT God's design. They have been imposed on man BY man, because of what man values. Remember, as creatures, we are designed by God to live naked and without jobs, in tropical environments where we eat fruit off the trees. We are designed to be intensely attracted to the other sex, and to fall in love and to begin to copulate and reproduce freely, starting very early. Remember teenage love, how intense it is? There is a sexual component, but there is, in early teenage years, a very intense love and attraction component. We are designed, by God, to ardently fall in love at age 12 and 13, to being to have sex at once, and to be intensely bound to that one person for the rest of our lives. THAT is our nature. Our ideas about economics and society are NOT natural too us. They are imposed ON us, not by God, but by owners and leaders and rulers ideas of economic and social order. Now, remember well, God does not give me the right to shed other men's blood, which means that it is not the natural order of man to dominate and rule other men. Men resist that, rightly, because we are NATURALLY designed, by God, to serve HIM, not to obey each other. The only way that men can compel other men to obey them and impose laws on them is by murdering some of them to instill fear in the others. Nimrod was the first Emperor. Others followed. They used force to establish "their" law, and maintained their (illegitimate) lawmaking power through the threat of force and the use of force. When they die, emperors are all unrepentant murderers, for not only do they kill men - which God forbids - but they have made an idol of themselves and their states such that they ignore God's prohibition and claim they have the RIGHT to, to uphold "the law". But where the law departs from God's law, it is domination, and evil, and when it is enforced by bloodshed and killing, the enforcer has broken a law of God and is a murderer. And if he believes he has the right to do so, he never repents, he SERVES another ideal - an idol - he dies unrepentant, and at judgment he is rejected and thrown into the flames. The social order of man is unnatural. It is not how God made us. It restrains and forces changes upon in against how God made us. So, when we're "resisting sexual immorality) at 25, it's not because God has made it hard. It's because MEN have made it hard. There shouldn't BE any sexual immorality, because we're SUPPOSED to be married and having sex at 12 and 13, with our intense teenage loves. And there is not supposed to be a highly structured system of economic domination over us that takes our God-given nature - to pair off very young and in love and breed - and replaces that with a serve-man, serve-money model, which is violent, idolatrous and very evil. We are so accustomed to thinking of the violent system of empire, law, order and finance as being "natural" that we fail to remember that we were not made for this in any way, and that it has been imposed on us, by some men, whom God never gave the right to do so. OF COURSE, if we live in structures that are not godly, serving things God told us not to, and repress our actually God-given natures, we're going to end up violent, sad, sullen, sex-twisted freaks. It isn't GOD who made a mess of us, it's MEN who did. The wages of THEIR sins ARE our death, but not because of a taint in the blood - because of the actual physical conditions they imposed on us. Adam and Eve ate fruit without effort. They tended the garden, because that was their "job", but they enjoyed doing it. What happened with their sin is that they were put out of the garden and had to make clothes (a major effort). God cursed the ground - now it was hard to make it grow food, and the food wasn't pleasant), and now childbirth was painful and even deadly. Just the economic situation of having to spend hours growing food, and making clothes - this reduced man's happiness, and THOSE economic conditions continued, and posed a challenge to men from Adam to the Flood (God removed the curse on the ground through the Flood, so the ground is no longer cursed). Look what MEN did in reaction. Consider carefully: Hevel (Abel) used the natural human mastery of animals, before men ate animals and animals had the fear of us on them, to herd sheep. He didn't eat their meat but he drank their milk (that was what he offered to God as his gift). And he probably used their wool for clothing. So, it was still possible for men to live relatively pleasant lives even under the restrained economic conditions of the ex-Eden world. Cain grew his food and offered that - grudgingly. God wasn't interested in Cain's offering because of the way it was offered (not, as some said, because it was grain: a daily grain offering was DEMANDED by God in Torah). Cain murdered Abel in a cold and calculated act of spite. He didn't fly off the handle and kill Abel on the spot. He called his brother out into the field and killed him, out of spite. Soon we see violence growing in Genesis. We also see polygamy - enforced by fear - appear with Lamech, who warns his wives that he is not to be taken lightly because he's a killer. When God decides on the Flood, he says why: violence, everywhere. The economic conditions of Eden were ideal for man, that's what we were designed for. But even after Eden we had it well enough. Jealousy, rage and lust: two wives, then more. Is THAT really our nature? No. It isn't. Every one of us remembers first falling in love, as a teenager. That endless, aching desire just to be WITH that other person. It wasn't even sexual, it was the desire for the bond, the companionship. All of THAT is natural, and in its first blush, it is SUPPOSED to be able to be swiftly reciprocated, such that the teen boy and teen girl fall in love, couple, and begin producing children. And that young love, strong love, NATURAL love is meant to last for life - and often DOES, when it is allowed to happen. THAT is how we are designed. We men do not PERMIT it. It makes a mess of our economic plans. It makes a mess of the educational structures we have designed in order to prepare men to be cogs in the gears of other men's economic plans. To keep our NATURES, which are GOOD, in check we impose harsh rules and violent laws, and we DO mostly stay in check. And then our nature, restrained, chafes at the restrain and becomes perverted, through unnatural use. We hear it said that masturbation is a sin, and we marvel: how could God be so cruel to command us to act against our natures! You would level the charge. But God isn't commanding us against our natures. Our NATURE is to take that sexual urge and couple with the girl we're in love with at 13, and she do the same, and to bond for life, THEN. If teenagers were marrying at 12 and 13, as God DESIGNED US, they would be being fruitful and multiplying, as we were designed by God, and they wouldn't be masturbating or committing any of the other sexual sins at all. In societies where they actually DO pair off very young, there are usually large families and lifelong bonds. Because that's our nature, and when permitted to express itself as God made it, we DON'T actually have sexual sin, because we don't need it or want it. It's only when we are twisted into pretzels through unnatural, man-made structures, structures which can only survive through constant and unlimited threats of death (which man never has the authority to mete out to other men, other than for murder), that sexual sin, and violence, and lies, and all of the other sins emerge. And yet we read so-called religious philosophers treat these great groaning human idols as though THEY are the natural state of man. They are not. Original sin? It exists: what Adam and Eve did removed humanity from Eden, and thereby imposed additional challenges on us all that are hard - food and clothing alone are burdens of time and labor, and require cooperation with other men. Their sin greatly complicates our lives. Some men accepted the reality and operated within the straightened world: Hevel did. Others become perverse and seek to dominate other men to force THEM to do the crap work. Nimrod, for example. But a taint in the blood, that works independently and causes men to die directly because of Adam's sin - "Original Sin" as you understand the word? - it does not exist. God never said it did. It's not in the Bible. We do not die because Adam died. We died because of our personal sins - or because somebody else's personal sin kills us (Hevel died as the result of Cain's sin). If we are spotless, we don't die when we are killed, for our spirit goes on and ultimately will go into the City. Physical death is one death, but the death of the spirit is the final death. Because of our personal sins, we die physical death. We don't die physical death directly because of something we inherited from Adam's personal sin. We die physical death because of our own personal sin, or because we're murdered in somebody else's sin. The effect of Adam's personal sin is to thrust us out of the Garden and place us into a world where living is hard, and the hardness of living has caused men over the generations to build up a bigger and bigger fist of violence and domination and law and idolatry to money and power, that then occasions our personal sin. So yes, in THAT sense Adam's sin kills us. But ONLY in that sense. There is nothing inherent in our blood that kills us. "Original Sin" as a taint of the blood was devised, not from Scripture, but as a logic exercise to try to explain WHY baptism is necessary for salvation. We're told it is, but that's all we're told. Men want ANSWERS. Scripture tells us about forgiveness of sins, but Christians have always baptized babies and children too, so they haven't committed any sin...so why baptize? "Original sin" as a taint coming down from Adam is what was made up to explain what "sin" baptism washes off of babies. And you know, IF we were Jews, it would be true. For sex and blood make a person unclean before God. And what that meant, in Israel, was that a man or woman could not participate in the ritual sacrifices at the altar. So, if a man had an emission of semen, however it happened (alone, or in regular sex with his wife) he was unclean until evening and could not participate in the rites. A woman was unclean throughout her period and for a time afterwards until she took her mikvah - mikvah is the Hebrew word which we would translate as baptism if it were in a Christian context, but which we would translate as bath in any other context. John the Baptist was giving people mikvah in the Jordan for forgiveness of sins. The unclean who had touched bodies had to have a mikvah outside of the camp in the lustral water (from the ashes of the red heifer - in other words: soap and water). Those who were covered in blood, such as women after periods or women and babies after childbirth, required a mikvah to be cleansed, not just physically, but from ritual impurity. Baptism for cleanliness is throughout the Torah. The Christian variant of it is easier: it's not repeated. It's once. But God never explains WHY. He doesn't explain it in the Torah, and he doesn't explain it in the Gospel either. So men have made up a reason. Some say that it's to wash away personal sin. That's what John the Baptist's mikvah was, but Jesus didn't say that was what his was. Those who say that oppose infant baptism because they say, correctly, that infants have no personal sin. Of course, they incorrectly assert that the "purpose" of baptism is to wash away PERSONAL sin. God never said that. Conversely, traditionalists such as Catholics have made up the doctrine that there's a mysterious taint in the blood that comes down from Adam, and that baptism washes away this "Original Sin", and that indeed it's necessary to follow their cultural tradition of baptizing babies, because otherwise the baby will die in sin and may be rejected by God for that sin. Both of these doctrines are made up. God said neither. God said that everybody needs a mikvah. He did not say why. We don't know why. Paul seems to say that we inherit death in the blood because of Adam's sin, but that isn't what Paul actually says, if you read him closely. And nowhere does God ever say that we physically die because Adam ate the fruit. Never once does it say that. The whole doctrine has been made up by men to try to EXPLAIN something, about baptism, that God didn't explain. Men can fight about these made up things if they want to, but when they do, they're just piling tradition on tradition, none of which came from God (UNLESS one believes that God gave these traditions outside of Scripture - but in no case do we have any saint or prophet standing up and declaring "God told me thus and so", so no, these traditions did NOT come out of God's mouth. Next, we'll hear that God chose leaders, and that the heirs of those leaders were given the power by God to reveal such things. Those heirs ALSO killed other saints of God, so obviously whatever power of leadership was given, does not go nearly as far as is claimed. Truth is: we don't know a lot of things. Baptism, we know we're supposed to do. And trying to devise a tortured argument that Baptism has something to do with removing a taint in the blood from Adam is ridiculous. How so? Baptized people die anyway. If the taint was the death sentence, then baptism would remove that. It doesn't. So it wasn't. Christians will fight endlessly over the sanctity of their doctrines, and will hurl around charges of heresy. It's bullshit when they do it, it's what the Pharisees did. The answer is that you look at what God said, and you do that. Why? Because that is what GOD said to do. "Man lives on every word THAT PROCEEDS FORTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD" - Jesus. "If you love me, you will do as I say." - Jesus. "What good does it do you to say that you follow me if you don't do as I say?" - Jesus It does nobody any good at all to not do what Jesus said. What Jesus said to do is hard enough. Adding to it in order to fight is bad. But then using energy fighting and refusing to even do the minimum - that's worse. One can question to clear away the thicket and get at God. That's what I'm working on in these writings, clearing the thicket. OR one can question in order to increase the thicket, to satisfy one's self that it's not possible to answer the questions, or know anything, and therefore justify doing whatever one pleases. That is common. Everybody decides for himself what he's going to do or not do, and why, on any given day. God leaves men free to do this personally, but he places a lot of constraints on the degree to which men can impose their wills on other men. Men cannot stand THOSE rules, because they mean that men would have to do a lot more work directly for themselves that they don't want to do - AND that they don't want to pay for either. So that's the drama. My views: focus on what God left us, so you're sure he IS. Then focus on what GOD said HIMSELF - not what men said that God meant - both in the Bible and without - and then follow God. Where what the men said is helpful, embrace it. Where what the men said and wrote is not helpful, ignore it. Where what the men said is actually opposed to what God said, ignore that too, but then correct other men when they seek to impose that on men. There are contradictions in Scripture, but there are no contradictions in what Jesus, himself (only himself) said. You start with what he said LAST, because that's when all is fully revealed. And then you move backwards. Or you spare yourself the trouble and accept the basic summary we've already seen a few times (no need to repeat it here). If the problem is that you have trouble believing that God IS, then he left artifacts that prove it. Go look at them. If the problem is that you really don't know what God WANTS, then read HIS words in Scripture. To save yourself time, just read Jesus, starting with Revelation (not the images, but what he actually SAYS, before and after the images), and then go read what he said in the Gospels. And stop. Jesus is the way. Ignore the rest of Scripture and all of the Churches and just fix your eyes on Jesus and what he himself SAID, and DO THAT, and you're fine, as far as eternal life and passing judgment goes. (You won't be fine with other men, who will seek to establish their dominance over you by insisting you ALSO believe THEIR doctrines about what Jesus MEANT. Jesus MEANT what he SAID. So read that and ignore the other men. Sometimes this may mean ignoring Paul too, because Paul wrote in a certain way to certain audiences, about conversations that were already had, and in private correspondence to boot. Some of what Paul says about belief appears to contradict what Jesus said about being judged on deeds. Jesus is God. Paul isn't. You can spend a lot of time convincing yourself Paul doesn't REALLY conflict (and he doesn't), or you can spare yourself and ignore Paul and listen to Jesus. You cannot go wrong doing what Jesus said, but you can go wrong doing what anybody else says if it makes you not do something Jesus said. Jesus is Lord for you, nobody else. If your problem is trying to make all of the vast body of material make sense, then first cut to the chase and do what Jesus said, and spend your leisure time trying to work out the puzzle. Or ignore it. It doesn't matter anyway to YOU. YOU are going to pass judgment, or not, based on how well you followed Jesus. If your problem is that other men are imposing, arrogant, tell you nonsense, and really annoy you with all their prattling and preachiness...well, welcome to the human race. (And if it REALLY bothers you THAT MUCH, then resist the urge to write to ME about these things, because I always write back). Up thread, I told folks that their wide ranging questions required a thoughtful response. I've given most of those responses in the past few posts, but I guess I should close the door here. BECAUSE we don't inherit physical death from Adam, Jesus' death was not, for us Gentiles, about making an offering for us. The offerings and redemptions and sacrifices were for Jews, and Jesus did what he did within the Jewish system, to satisfy requirements of it, and close the books on the Jewish sacrifices, to fulfill and complete them before pulling down the Temple and destroying the altar forever. What Jesus means to us Gentiles is that death is not the end, we live forever IF we follow him. To follow him, we have to do what HE said, which is generally at odds with what the world says (and sometimes with what we WANT). Do that, and when we die, we get to live. Tribe and sacrifice have nothing to do with it. It's one on one, none of our tribes mean anything to God, and we're not judged by tribe but by deed. We don't have to become Jews to follow Jesus, and in fact we can ignore everything about the Jews, as long as we follow Jesus. If we ignore the Jews, we won't understand many things Jesus talks about, because HE has to complete a specific law given by YHWH to the Jews, but that law was to the Jews and for the Jews, and never had anything to do with Gentiles, and still doesn't. Prediction: I've just told a lot of men that key parts of their theologies are wrong. I've said that the wrongness is IRRELEVANT, as long as they do what Jesus SAID, but men will press further and not simply listen to Jesus on how to be acceptable to him, they will insist that their traditions are also part of the highest truth, and must be accepted, and that I'm an agent of Lucifer if I say otherwise, and all sorts of other accusations that will not be respectful. It's all been done before. When Jesus is the subject, Gabbatha is never far away. Jesus IS the subject. Read him, and base all of your beliefs and laws on him ALONE, and you will be doing well. Dilute him with others, and you may know more, but when you start convincing yourself that the easier paths proposed by others are "just as true" as what Jesus said, because "they were his apostles", you've lost the trail. The Apostles sometimes did contradict Jesus. And whenever they did, they were wrong by definition. Don't get wrapped around the axle. There is one leader. Follow HIM. Not me. And not some other guy who will certainly be less respectful of you than I am. He and I both "know it all", but the difference is that he says "Listen to HIM!", but I say "Listen to JESUS" and point to HIS words. That's the law, and there's not very much of it. If you want a "Just Jesus" synopsis, that just contains the words spoken by Christ with a little bit of surrounding text for contextual framework, in the order he said what he said, in a "concordant" format (such that the same Greek word is always translated by the same English word, and no single English word is used to translate two different Greek words) so that you can see the full nuance of difference but also the same terminology across the texts, then ask and I will send it to you. Study what Jesus said, Just Jesus, day after day. There's no much of it, and some is hard. But remember what Jesus said about sin: if you want to be forgiven it by God, then forgive men. And of all of your sins and flaws, the one to work on the most is being bitter and unyielding and unforgiving of other men, because you have sins as we all do, and the only way you're going to be forgiven those sins is if you forgive other men. THAT part: the YOU doing the very thing for other men you don't like that you want GOD to do for YOU, is not optional or negotiable. If you sin much but you forgive much, you will be forgiven much. But if you sin little love little and judge harshly, you've probably doomed yourself. Jesus told you that YOU set the standards of your OWN judgment. If YOU are an unyielding, judgmental bastard, that's the standard by which you shall be judged. Jesus promised it. So, if you are one, then understand that your approach is going to get you damned, by your own hand, and repudiate your stupidity, back down from your belief in your own rectitude, and be lenient. You want God to be lenient with you, yes? You've said that God is cruel for judging us harshly for sins if our nature doesn't let us stop. Yes, he WOULD BE, but that's not the standard he set. He said that he will judge you according to the standards by which YOU judged other men their sins against you. So, we were talking about sexual sins. All men have them. Men who are judgmental prigs about the sexual sins of others are simply men who think their secrets are safe. What they have done is set a standard of judgment for themselves that will be God being as unyielding and unforgiving of THEIR sexual sins as THEY have been of other men's. You are judged by the measure by which YOU judged. Jesus promised that - which is GOOD NEWS if you're lenient. But it means you have damned yourself to death in hell if you are a harsh, stern, judgmental and unyielding prick when it comes to others. As YOU judge, you SHALL be judged. That's Jesus' promise to the lenient, and threat to the unyielding. So if you're unyielding, yield. Back down. Soften. Be lenient. Harshness will get you little good in life. In the afterlife, it will get you damned. Jesus promised that. So be lenient. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   11:05:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #170. To: Vicomte13 (#164) Did God originally create Adam to be physically immortal? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:37:27 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   Replies to Comment # 170. #182. To: SOSO (#170) Did God originally create Adam to be physically immortal? Don't know. Can't know. God didn't say. Perhaps if a man never sins, and is never killed by somebody else committing a sin (or killed through the agency of somebody else's sin (e.g.: somebody pouring mercury in the waters)), then we might not die. But we all sin, and so we all die. The "hard case" might appear to be children with birth defects who die before they can sin. But if one explores each birth defect, one may very well find a human agency there, with the defect the product of disease or problem that resulted from human agency. Certainly people who live around toxic dumps have more defects - the babies didn't sin, but like Abel, they were really killed by somebody else's sin. No way to know for sure. Just as there is no way to know for certain that you will in fact die. The world may end first. Or you might not. Chances are, though, that if you're able to contemplate this sort of thing, you've already committed a mortal sin. And the reason you "had" to was because of the dysfunctional and sinful structures of our society working against our natures. God made up his mind about the physics long ago, and he's not going to change it. So if our social and legal and governmental structures force us all onto a path that inevitably leads to mortal sin, and death, then we have to see that - just as we have with cigarette smoking - and take the painful step of changing the way we choose to do business, choose to govern ourselves, choose to have laws. If we do that, we may be able to relax the human-imposed strictures that funnel us all down the chute of mortal sin. And if we don't sin, maybe we won't die, and maybe we will. The Scripture does not ever say that there is anything intrinsically different between us and Adam that would have caused HIM to live forever if he hadn't sinned, but which causes us to die regardless. It only tells us that the wage of sin is death. If you've already sinned, you're going to die physically. Until Jesus, that was a disaster. It was Jesus' new covenant that gave the second chapter and told us that death is not so bad after all, that more and better awaits the good. God doesn't change the physics: you sin, you die, BUT he showed the second act. And THAT is why Jesus had to die - in order to be resurrected, to demonstrate the very good new that death ain't nuthin' but a thing. To the extent that we are excessively concerned about death and think that it's a disaster to be held off at all cost - that in itself is idolatry, causing us to serve the flesh and forget that flesh is grass and that if we're brave, good - and forgiving - once we get flesh BACK, we get to keep it and live with God. Some say this is not human nature. I am human, I understand it perfectly well. So yes, it IS human nature to be able to see it, understand it, and act on it. Humans who resist this truth are idolators, refusing to accept the good news and CHOOSING to treat flesh as though it were more important than it is. Idolators fail final judgment. To find your life, you have to lose it. Cowardice results in damnation. Refusing to repent results in damnation. Refusing to forgive results in damnation. Idolatry results in damnation. So don't do any of those things. Be brave: they can't DO anything to you but kill you, and flesh is grass anyway. They can't really kill you: Jesus proved it. THAT's the good news, and the purpose of the crucifixion and the resurrection - and that's WHY God left the Shroud of Turin as the specific, most remarkable of all of the artifacts, to commemorate THAT VERY EVENT - the horrible death AND the miracle of the resurrection. Which means divinity. Which means you can trust what HE said. I just repeat what HE said. It's a good deal. It's good news. Words are wind and flesh is grass, but wind is spirit, so keep the spirit and follow the words of Jesus - Just Jesus - and you will come through. And you MIGHT not even die. God MIGHT forgive you your sins and let you just keep on living. Of course, after time, as you knew that for certain, that flesh would become a hell of a burden. For the longer the miracle continued, the more you'd realize it WAS a miracle...and then all of a sudden immortality would look like a curse. WHY is the wage of sin death? Pretty obvious, really. Once man gets a taste for sin, that sin becomes practically irresistible. But God doesn't change his mind any more than men do, and God is the King and judge - men are just insubordinate, corrupt and violent soldiers, bad cops, crooked judges. Eventually there's an accounting, and Gehenna, and various dispositions. But if there were no death, men would marinate in their sins forever, until the end of the world. Imagine the horror if men just kept springing back to life and could not be permanently killed. Then man could never escape the cruelty of man, and a man could be tortured to death a thousand times to rise and face it a thousand times more, for as long as another immortal man hated him. Death is a punishment, but it is also a strange gift. It cuts off Satan, by removing the flesh from the spirit. For Satan puts his hooks in the flesh, but the spirit CAN be cleansed. Jesus said how. Lots of men have said how too, but what men say is often quite different from what Jesus said. Jesus said that if you sin, and if you want to be forgiven, then you have to forgive other men their sins against you. To the extent you forgive other men, God will forgive you. To the extent you hold other men accountable to you for their debts, God will hold you accountable to them for theirs. Some men say that you don't have to do anything, because Jesus' death "redeemed" you. Redeption fits within the sequence of Jewish sacrifices - which have nothing to do with Gentiles and never did. Men say that nevertheless, Jesus' death is all that does it. But JESUS says that men are judged by their deeds, and that if men want to be forgiven, they have to forgive. Jesus is right. Some men say that men have to say certain prayers and go through certain rituals to be forgiven their sins. Jesus said that God will forgiven men's sins if they forgive men their sins, but that God won't forgive men who don't forgive. Once again there is a conflict. And once again, Jesus is Lord, and therefore right, and the men who say otherwise are wrong. Some men say that men have to become religious zealots to be forgiven their sins. They say that Jesus said to be perfect, and that therefore men have to perfectly follow the rules of religion. These men are half right: Jesus said to be perfect, and men do have to perfectly follow the rules. But then men propose a bunch of rules that Jesus didn't say. Jesus said be perfect, do this and don't do that, but included in the rule is the rule that says that God will forgive your breaking the rules if, and to the extent that, you forgive other men breaking the rules. We all have free will. We all choose what we believe, and what we're going to do about it. Read what Jesus said: keep your eyes on HIM, and ignore the rest, and you'll have a pretty simple, even threadbare, religion. It will be hard and not very colorful. And you'll pass judgment and go into the City at the end - and there it will make a whole lot more sense. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16 18:35:27 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   End Trace Mode for Comment # 170. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register]  Please report web page problems, questions and comments to webmaster@libertysflame.com