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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: 86069 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 Comments (1-162) not displayed.       .       .       . #163. To: TooConservative (#162) I had an account long before 2009. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-16   10:13:38 ET  Reply   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   Trace   Private Reply   #165. To: redleghunter (#151) I posed the question Jasper. Which needed refienment, if not context. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:09:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #166. To: GarySpFC (#159) Let's see. I have one love letter from my sweetie, and I'm having trouble understanding what she means by the word "love." Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have 35,000 letters from her, and she used the word love in many of them. ping to 127. I hope this illustrates my point. What if half of her letters used like (or sunstitute any other word that may hace the nuance of love) instead of love? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:12:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #167. To: redleghunter, SOSO, liberator, vicomte13 (#152) That's easy. If we have the capacity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and do nothing about it, then we are guilty of that shed blood. So, if killing the nut protects innocent life we have a moral right to defend. I believe that vicomte13 has a different take. His take on Thou Shall Not Kill is that Scripture tells us that God tells us not the shed blood, which may include killing, murder, maiming, etc.. Things are not as neat as you state. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:16:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #168. To: GarySpFC (#158) All that hearsay upon hearsay in God's Word has made it null and void. No, not null and void but open to questions of fidelity. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:22:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #169. To: GarySpFC (#158) This has enormous implications for our understanding of the NT manuscripts and [for] our question: How long were they used? What was their longevity before they were retired or thrown out? And the answer is................. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   11:25:58 ET  Reply   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   Trace   Private Reply   #171. To: SOSO, GarySpFC (#147) Worse yret, when it comes to scripture much of it is in dead languages. And for those that are still around the nuances of words have changed over time. One cannot be certain what the nuance of the word agape was two thousand years ago. We do know what agape means. We have generations since the Resurrection using the same words even when the language progresses. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”(Isaiah 40:8) redleghunter  posted on  2015-01-16   11:42:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #172. To: GarySpFC, redleghunter, viconte13, Liberator (#159) Let's see. I have one love letter from my sweetie, and I'm having trouble understanding what she means by the word "love." Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have 35,000 letters from her, and she used the word love in many of them. I have to thank you for your post. I have never been satisfied that I was adequately articluating my point on why I believe that Scripture, while may be necessry, is not sufficient as its fidelity is open to question. You have given me a means to improve upon stating my position. So here it is. Why do you know that your sweetie loves you? It's becuase she told you herself. She told you face to face while looking into your eyes and holding your hand. You heard her say the words I Love You directly to you and she probably said other words to you with the nuance of the meaning of love on many other occasions. She did not send one of her firends to tell you that she loves you or another one to tell you that she really cares for you a lot or yet another one to tell you that she really likes you or another yet to tell you that she wants to be with you. She did it herself, not through hearsay from a less than perfect proxy. Now had she sent her emmisaries to deliver their nuanced messages of her love for you, you may have found that very comforting and encouraging. You even may act upon those messages. But until you heard it directly from her, until she herself touched your soul there was always a bit of unertainty. Thomas needed to touch Jesus' wounds to seal the deal for Thomas and he had plenty of personal contact with Jesus prior to that and still doubted. Jesus touches our lives in many ways. For some it may be Scripture. But IMO if that is the only way a person knows the presence of God in his life it is lacking in substance, it is an incomplete relationship - it is a relationship based on hearsay. It is much more assuring if you hear/feel God communicating to you Himself that He loves you. That's it. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   12:26:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #173. To: SOSO, GarySpFc, liberator (#172) It is much more assuring if you hear/feel God communicating to you Himself that He loves you. That's it. The very evidence The Father loves us. He gave us Jesus Christ: John 3: 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.[a] 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but[b] have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”(Isaiah 40:8) redleghunter  posted on  2015-01-16   15:21:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #174. To: SOSO (#139) God says thou shall not kill. Does He mean that in the absoulte in every circumstance? Or does He expect you to protect the lives of your family even if it meant that you had to kill to do so? God said to the HEBREWS on Sinai: "You shall not kill". He never said that to the rest of us. What he said to the rest of us was, first "Do not shed man's blood. He who sheds man's blood, by man his blood must be shed." And then, Jesus, at the end, said that murderers do not enter the City. Murderers. Distinctions of killing and murder, and vengeance, and trial procedures - those were all laws laid down specifically for God in the Constitution of the only state that he ever ruled directly as King: ancient Israel. And they were all predicated, all of them, on DO THIS, and YOU GET A FARM." "You shall not kill", given at Sinai, given only to Hebrews at Sinai, along with a bunch of judicial laws and rules as to what killing was - the entirety of that - was a rule for that people, in that time, and it never applied to anybody else. For the only reward ever offered to the Hebrews under the law - if they didn't kill, or commit adultery, and did everything as told at Sinai, was that they would live securely and prosperously and be fertile and have families on their own farm in Israel. That is it. That is ALL. God never said one word about the afterlife, or judgment, or life after death, or the soul, to the Hebrews at Sinai. The man who followed the WHOLE JEWISH LAW was not "saved" from anything. If he wasn't a Jew, he got nothing. There was no promise of anything, except for circumcised members of the Hebrew community, and the ONLY THING God EVER promised them for obeying the law of Sinai was a FARM. THAT is the Mosaic Covenant..."Do not kill (or any of the other stuff), and you'll live in peace on your own farm in Israel." THAT was the reward that God promised the Israelites. He never said a thing - not one thing - about what happens to any Israelite's spirit or soul after that person dies. Nothing. The "Old Covenant" with the Jews, was a direct promise: obey these conditions and you get a farm, in this particular land, during your physical life. God never said one single word about life after death, or judgment, or going to Heaven, in the Old Covenant with the Jews. Nowhere in the Torah is there a whiff of it. SO, you as a Gentile, watching your family being attacked, what law did God give to YOU? He NEVER commanded YOU, or any ancestor you ever had, "Thou shall not kill." That law was for Jews. Nobody else. He said "Do not shed man's blood", coupled with "He who sheds man's blood, by man his blood must be shed." Is the man who is aiming to kill your family shedding man's blood? Yes. Then God has COMMANDED you to shed his blood. If you sit by and do nothing, you are not obeying God's command to punish - by bloodshed of the perpetrator - his crimes. Further, at the last Supper Jesus told his disciples that they'd been free from attack during his life, so he had sent them out unarmed, but now that he was leaving they had to sell their extra cloak and buy a sword. Jesus told his disciples to arm themselves, with swords, so that they could defend themselves violently if need be. Jesus not only did not command his followers to not shed blood, he commanded his followers to arm themselves so that they would be ready TO shed blood, in their own defense, if necessary. If somebody is attacking your family, you are the good shepherd of that family: God ordered all men to shed the blood of men who shed blood - bloodshed must be repaid by bloodshed: that is God's COMMANDMENT to Noah and mankind in general. (He ruled Israel directly and had special laws for Israel, the reward for obedience of which was a farm, for Jews, in Israel - UNTIL Jesus pronounced the doom on Israel; now there's not even THAT.)(Oh, and the law of Israel merely provided a PROCEDURE for shedding the blood of those who shed blood, to be sure it is just.) Finally, on the last page of the Bible Jesus twice said that MURDERERS do not enter the City of God after judgment, but are thrown into the fire. MURDERERS are men who kill others without justification. So, we have three pieces of non-Israelite reference: (1) Men must shed the blood of those men who shed blood - God, to Noah and his sons, speaking of MAN, not of just them. (2)Jesus commanded his followers to arm to defend themselves. (3) Jesus said twice that murderers - specifically - will be damned to the flames. The law God gave the Israelites doesn't depart from these principles at all. It's useful to read it because of the greater detail that God gives to the people under his direct civil governance. But before we dive into that detail we have to stop short and remind ourselves over and over: NOTHING IN THE LAW OF MOSES EVER APPLIED TO ANYBODY BUT HEBREWS IN ISRAEL. Nothing. Not. One. Word. Yes, there are laws in there that ALSO apply to the whole world, but God didn't reveal those laws TO the world THROUGH Israel. He revealed those laws either through Noah and his sons (remember, all of humanity was concentrated on that one boat, were all related, and all got the law delivered to them much more personally than the Hebrews did, sprawled out in a million-person camp at the foot of a mountain with only one or two guys speaking to him). We have to remember that because otherwise we end up saying that we have to, or are PERMITTED to, say, burn witches at the stake because God commanded the Israelites to kill witches, so we know that he approves. But actually, God ONLY gave permission to the Israelites to do that, in his land. For US, he commanded not to shed blood, not to murder. Killing a witch if you're not in ancient Israel under God's direct rule is MURDER. The ancient Sanhedrin who ordered a witch killed were doing right. The medieval bishop's court that ordered a witch burnt, and everybody who burnt here, were murderers who themselves will likely be burnt in the lake of fire. If you are going to pick up the tools of violence, you had damned well better UNDERSTAND God's law. Because you will be held accountable for that killing. The law of Israel confuses people, much in the same way that Paul confuses people on some central facts. For that very reason, it is most important to read exactly what GOD said DIRECTLY, himself and through Jesus. THAT IS THE LAW. And under THAT law, you MUST intervene to save your family, if you shed the would-be killer's blood, you have done justice. Of course, if you go off half cocked, make up a threat that's not there, and blow away a lost kid who wandered into your garage because you're a nutjob with a hairtrigger who imagines threats, then you're just a murderer and are going to the fire at judgment, probably. God sees hearts. If you're so overwrought that you fear everything and strike to kill, then you need to get help. Because remember: COWARDS are also thrown into the fire. God damns COWARDS as well as killers. So, if you violently stop this killer from killing your family, and you have good reason - reason that would stand up to honest witnesses - to believe that you are saving their lives, defending them and yourself, then you have done right: who have shed the blood of the bloodshedder, you have been the good shepherd that has killed the lion. But if you're unreasonably afraid, and just shoot somebody who is near your family on suspicion, because "you know how things go", then you're a murderer, and damned, or if he actually lives, you may be damned anyway, for shedding a man's life out of your own cowardice. Remember, God damns both murderers AND cowards to the fire: both. Why cowards? Because he who would preserve his life will lose it. Men who make an idol out of biological life lack faith. They do not remember that flesh is grass, and death comes to all, but life goes on. We are spirits in a body, and the spirit is our life. We do what is right, and if that exposes us to danger such that we die, then we die. But before we go out there shedding blood in our headstrong arrogance, because we have convinced ourselves that "we have the right" by our human legal logic, we have to remember that OUR human logic doesn't count for shit in the court of God, that God gave specific directions and commandments, and that man will be judged on God's law alone. A bishop and 60 clergy of the courts of northern France tried and sentenced Joan of Arc to be burnt alive for carrying out the instructions she heard from God. They did this because she upset their political applecart and overthrew a government they preferred, with much loss of life among the conquerors they preferred. They used the legal system to extract revenge. They believed themselves in the right, for surely God would not favor the other side, and her voices could not be proven, so she must be a witch. And witches must die. Except that if anybody but the ancient Israelite Sanhedrin killed a witch, the killers were murderers God will throw into the lake of fire. Nobody outside of ancient Israel had the right to kill any witch. The problem for those clergymen who damned themselves to the flames by sending Joan of Arc to the flames is simple: they committed murder. They used their power to murder a woman they hated, on the grounds that she was a witch. Had they tried her on the grounds that she killed people, they would have also have had to try their own reigning nobility and every soldier in their own army, and they did not think that way. God does, by HIS law, but those men didn't. This is the problem of trying to force man's law down on top of God's. When it's done, it's ALWAYS to give men GREATER leeway than God gives, and it often plays around with those very things that God has warned will result in the fire of hell. Men cannot authorize other men to get a pass out of hell for doing men's bidding. And when men are faced with the problem of those orders, God commands them to be courageous, and warns that cowardice buys hell just as surely as killing. Sometimes to protect life, you have to kill. That's not murder under God's law, but it may well be under human law. Conversely, sometimes to obey human commanders and laws you are ordered to do things that you must defy in order to not break God's law. You can kill to stop the shedding of innocent blood, and if you can stop the shedding of innocent blood, you must do so - if you hang back and refuse to do it to protect your own reputation, you're a coward. But you don't have to throw your life away in a hopeless attack either. Human laws of order do not trump God's law, and God gave you a head to use. There should be no crisis of conscience when a man is watching his wife and children endangered by a nutso, because God's law is clear: you intervene, forcefully, and you stop the killing. If you don't because you think that God prohibits that, then you have bought a load of bull taught to you by idiot men. God only said four things to YOU about killing: You are not to go out looking for shedding blood. You are not to murder. You ARE to defend yourself, and you ARE to shed the blood of those who shed blood. Don't be a coward. That's it. That's the law. Murderers and cowards are thrown into the fire. Defend yourself and punish killers. That's God's law. It's unambiguous. And if you take any part of God's specific law for the Jews in Israel and use that law, which does not apply to you, to try to override or weasel out of God's short, stern, clear law for YOU, you're doing it wrong. And whoever tells you otherwise can't read. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   16:31:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #175. To: Vicomte13, GarySpFc, liberator, redlegnuter (#174) If anythnig you are certainly thorough. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   16:39:20 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #176. To: redleghunter, GarySpFc, liberator (#173) The very evidence The Father loves us. He gave us Jesus Christ: I guess that I still haven't made my point well. And exactly how do you, I or anyone know that God gave us Jesus? Through third party written words or through personally revealing His presence to us? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   16:54:18 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #177. To: SOSO (#172) While I was His enemy Christ died for me. That is love. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-16   17:55:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #178. To: GarySpFC (#177) While I was His enemy Christ died for me. That is love. When were you ever Christ's enemy? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:03:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #179. To: SOSO (#176) (Edited) 1 John 5:10 (AMP) 10 He who believes in the Son of God [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] has the testimony [possesses this divine attestation] within himself. He who does not believe God [in this way] has made Him out to be and represented Him as a liar, because he has not believed (put his faith in, adhered to, and relied on) the evidence (the testimony) that God has borne regarding His Son. . Is God a liar? “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-16   18:16:43 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #180. To: GarySpFC (#179) Is God a liar? You are getting a little slippery here, Gary. "He who believes in the Son of God [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] has the testimony [possesses this divine attestation] within himself." Is God a liar? Of course not. I am surprised that you are still asking. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:28:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #181. To: SOSO (#180) The point being do you believe His testimony? “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-16   18:31:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #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   Trace   Private Reply   #183. To: redleghunter (#140) You missed the overarching piece. The actual Gospel. I didn't miss anything: the forgive to be forgiven, and you will be measured by the measured with which you measured comes directly from the mouth of Christ in the Gospel. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   18:38:48 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #184. To: GarySpFC (#181) The point being do you believe His testimony? Of course. I received and accpeted His testimony from the Holy Ghost as a gift from God. Now, I have answered every one of your questions, yet you do not answer mine. Why is that? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:40:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #185. To: Vicomte13 (#182) Perhaps if a man never sins.......then {he} might not die. Jesus never sinned yet He did die. But you really go along way around the barn to use logic not to come up the the most logical conclusion that God did indeed create Adam and Eve to be physically immortal. You can conclude this because God said to them that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. If God intend from the beginning that Adma and Eve to physically die at so time, presumably to be transformed into an after life with with Him, why would He have created the flesh to begin with? Yeah, I know God works in mysterious ways and we mortals can't know the Mind of God. As soon as any of us applies human logic, human reasoning to describe or understand God we fail in that endeavor and are left to our own devices. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   18:53:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #186. To: SOSO (#175) If anythnig you are certainly thorough. Yeh. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   19:07:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #187. To: TooConservative (#161) I have no doubt he's not religious he's just trying to make religious people out to be a hypocrites while trying to portray himself as a saint, talk about a legend in his own mind. “Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.” CZ82  posted on  2015-01-16   20:29:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #188. To: SOSO (#185) Jesus never sinned yet He did die. But you really go along way around the barn to use logic not to come up the the most logical conclusion that God did indeed create Adam and Eve to be physically immortal. You can conclude this because God said to them that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit. Jesus was MURDERED, which is not the same thing as just dying from natural mortality. Adam and Eve, or you or I - being IMMORTAL doesn't mean we can't be killed by lightning or drowning or poisoning, or get cancer from exposure to plutonium. It would mean that our bodies would not age and wear out on their own, causing us to die of old age if nothing killed us sooner. And maybe if we didn't sin, we wouldn't age and die. This proposition is difficult to test, because we've sinned. One proposition that is not so difficult to test is that notion that "Original Sin" is the sentence to die because of Adam's sin, that Adam lost his immortality because he sinned, and that THAT is this "Original Sin". If THAT were really true, then if baptism washed away "Original Sin", then people who were baptized would be immortal, because their sins, including Original Sin, were all washed away. Truth is, we may very well STILL be immortal, each of us, right now (if we ever were), because Scripture does not say that Adam incurred inheritable Original Sin for eating the apple. All that God said is "If you eat of it, you will die." He did, and he did. Nothing says that Adam would not have eventually been killed by something else - probably not, because he was in God's garden and the animals were tame and the humans had dominion. Nothing says that they wouldn't have aged. Tradition says that, but Adam and Eve in the garden, and their original condition, is only a few sentences long. Nor does anything in the Scripture tell you that if a man is born and grows up and never sins, that he will die of natural causes. Nothing there says that man must die of natural causes. What God DOES say is that certain sins are deadly. He'll kill you for them. And he does. Lots of passages (none of them spoken by God directly) say that all men sin. That's probably right: all men DO, and there are at least two reasons for that; conditions are bad, and we do have active, aggressive and intelligent enemies: Satan and demons, aggressively pushing us to do bad things and die. Now, if Original Sin really meant the removal of immortality, then if baptism really removes Original Sin (as some men tell themselves), then the baptized man who never sins again is immortal...but when he commits a mortal sin, then he's back on the cycle of degradation and death. Want to live forever in the flesh? Then be perfect and don't sin and you very well might...except that somebody else will kill you, or an accident will intervene, but that's not mortality, that's getting killed. Mortality is wearing out and dying of natural causes that are not externally inflicted. Query as to whether terrible environmental conditions are themselves deadly things ways by which sinful men inadvertently kill other men. The problem with the concept of Original Sin, that Adam did something that taints the blood and causes us to die, is that God never said anything like that. To the Jews, he said that men were punished for THEIR sins, not the sins of their fathers. Of course that was a principle of Jewish law and doesn't directly apply to anybody else (but it shows you how God thinks). To us, he said that if you sin, God pays you with death. The good news is that it's just physical death, and just for a time. It's logical to assume that Adam and Eve were immortal, and that sin is what killed them. And it is equally logical to assume that the identical thing is true of every man or woman ever born. YOU were immortal, but you sinned, so now you're under a death sentence. Same with your wife, children, everybody. The case of Jesus tells us that an immortal sinless man can STILL be MURDERED - immortality is not superhuman. It is not logical to assume that Adam's sin created a taint in the blood that passes. It's not logical to assume it because God never said it. We die because we sin, not because he sinned. That's what God said, and THAT is logical. Now, it may be that that is just too unpleasant to bear: that you WERE immortal, but you yourself did the same thing that Adam did and went ahead and did what you know was forbidden, so now you're going to die. But on a straight read of Scripture, unpleasant or not, that's true. I'm not going to die because of Adam's sin. I'm going to die because of my own. Adam lived 930 years, sin and all, so maybe you or I will too. The REAL lasting effect of Adam's and Eve's sin is that they got kicked out of the natural habitat of man. So now, instead of living naked and eating fruit at ease like we're supposed to, we're living in really bad conditions that wear us down, with violence and death and disease all around us. Perhaps Adam was immortal IN EDEN, because there were no diseases IN EDEN, and perhaps aging and disease are things that are imposed by the bad environment, so perhaps the WAY that Adam's sin killed us all isn't because of some taint of the blood that gets washed off (makes no sense: baptism doesn't stop aging, disease and death, and it should if those things are the consequence of Mortal Sin, and Baptism washes away mortal sin). Perhaps the WAY that Adam's sin killed us is by getting us kicked out of our perfect habitat where we would live forever, into a hostile one that wears us out. We used to live in Paradise. But now we're wearing out in the disease infested jungle. THAT, and not mysterious taints in the blood, is probably why we wear out and die. But again, focusing on the flesh is kind of pointless. Flesh is grass. Be immortal, live "forever", and "forever" is the end of the world, in fire, so you get to burn to death at the end. Great. We can't hold onto it even if we're sinless Adam. And we're not. The good news is that we get it back. The bittersweet news is that we get it back, and then we get judged. The good news is that if we pass the test, we get to live on and on in the City of God. The bad news is that if we fail the test, we get thrown into the fire and killed again. The good news is that we already have the crib sheet and know how to pass. The bad news is that we have an insubordination problem. So, the bottom line is that we each need to get over our insubordination problem if we want to live until the end of times in God's City. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   20:56:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #189. To: Vicomte13 (#188) Jesus never sinned yet He did die. Jesus was MURDERED, which is not the same thing as just dying from natural mortality. Here's my accepted definition of mortality, one which I believe is widely accepted: mor·tal·i·ty noun: mortality; plural noun: mortalities 1. the state of being subject to death. What's yours? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-16   21:27:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #190. To: CZ82 (#187) I have no doubt he's not religious he's just trying to make religious people out to be a hypocrites while trying to portray himself as a saint, talk about a legend in his own mind. He's looking for cover by posing as a Christian or, more likely, he's trying to annoy us so much that we bozo him (again) so he can sneak around like a backstabbing stalker on the forum and badmouth us behind our backs while high-fiving his fellow-Canaries in forum mails. Pretty much one or the other. Tooconservative  posted on  2015-01-16   21:49:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #191. To: SOSO (#189) mor·tal·i·ty noun: mortality; plural noun: mortalities 1. the state of being subject to death. What's yours? I think that word immortality means what it does to biologists: "will not die of its own accord". I do not think, for example, that if Adam, before he sinned, were suddenly picked up and hurled into a lava pit, or thrown into the sun, or if he had a millstone tied around his neck and he were thrown into the deepest sea, that he would not drown. I think that he would have died. When biologists say that certain cells are immortal, what they mean is that they continuously regenerate, and they never wear out and die. They keep on going, keep on repairing themselves, and do not age. This is the problem with cancer cells, the thing that makes them so deadly: they're immortal. Your regular tissue cells are mortal: after a certain amount of time, they age, break down, degrade and die. But cancer cells don't do that. Cancer stills stay alive and vibrant. They keep on sucking energy and nutrients, and taking up space, and throwing out waste products, and reproducing, but they never wear out, age and die - they just keep on living. And so over time there are more and more and more of them, reproducing, but not dying. The regular tissue is dying. So the immortality of the cancer cells causes them over time to take the place and nutrients of the normal cell. But all a cancer cell does is eat and reproduce and keep on living, forever. It doesn't fulfill the FUNCTION that a cell in that organ should. It just LIVES and EATS and MULTIPLIES. Cancer cells are immortal. That doesn't mean that if you take a cancer cell and hit it with a laser, it won't cook and die. It just means that under normal conditions, it won't wear out and die. Adam and Eve had to eat. The first commandment they were given was to reproduce, but the second was to EAT. If immortality simply meant: will not die, no matter what, then they didn't have to eat. They could not eat, not drink, not breathe, go underwater to breathe, burn themselves up in fire and not be harmed, club each others brains out, leap off of cliffs, cut themselves open and play with their own entrails, swim in hot lava - do anything, and not die. That's what your definition of immortality would seem to permit. Not mine. Mine is the biological one: it won't age, wear out and die of its own accord. You can still kill it by removing its food, or air, or by physically destroying it. It just won't ever die of its own accord. We have different ideas about what immortality is. But it's pretty irrelevant, because the word immortality never appears in the Torah or in the Gospels. Man is never called immortal, and immortality is never taken away from man in the Scriptures either. That's a traditional gloss. I find the tradition to be unsupported by the text, and unneccessary because it explains nothing that requires explaining, so I don't accept it. It doesn't bother me that people do, but it seems pretty irrelevant to what God said. Our SPIRITS are immortal: they don't age or die. Body dies, spirit goes on. But even the spirit can and will be killed if God throws it into the Lake of Fire to utterly destroy it for good. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-16   23:37:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #192. To: Vicomte13 (#183) I saw your post clarifying your point. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”(Isaiah 40:8) redleghunter  posted on  2015-01-16   23:42:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #193. To: All (#191) (Edited) I find the tradition to be unsupported by the text, and unneccessary because it explains nothing that requires explaining, so I don't accept it. It doesn't bother me that people do, but it seems pretty irrelevant to what God said. One further point of clarification: what I mean is that I don't think that anything was taken from Adam and from us that Adam had before. Adam may very well have been immortal, and we likewise also may very well have been born immortal. God sentenced Adam to death for sin. That's why he died. He was immortal, unless he committed a sin, then God would execute him. What was true of Adam may very well be true of each of us. Like Adam, we too were born immortal. The Scripture does not speak of anything intrinsic to Adam that was taken away from mankind forever because Adam sinned. Scripture says that Adam died because he sinned. Scripture says that WE die because we sin (or, like Jesus, because we are murdered). The wages of sin is death. Scripture says that. So, Adam, and you and I, were all born immortal. Adam's sin did not take our immortality from us. Each man and woman is born capable of living forever and ever without ever wearing out of our own accord. We can be killed, but we will not die. Immortal. Every one of us. BUT the wages of sin is death. Commit a serious sin, a sin bringing death, and then we are sentenced to death, and our bodies wear out and we die, if we're not killed by something else first. The concept of "Original Sin" - that Adam was immortal, but sinned and so now WE'RE no longer immortal - but baptism washes away Original Sin: it's incoherent (because baptism does not make us immortal), and it's not in the Scripture, and it's a doctrine that serves no purpose other than to explain a question that Scripture doesn't ask. The better answer, on the text, is that each man is born immortal (in the biological sense), but that everybody wears out and dies because of the decision to commit mortal sin, and the wages of mortal sin is death. THAT fits Scripture and its inference. It also means that you were not born doomed to die any more than Adam was. You were born immortal. But you're going to die nevertheless, and the REASON you're going to die is the same reason Adam did: you committed mortal sin, and God has therefore sentenced you to death just exactly as he did Adam, for exactly the same reason. The only difference between you and Adam is that you know you will rise again and have a second chance. Of course, if you're just going to be judged AGAIN at the resurrection for the same sin, that seems a cruel trick. And this is why the mechanism for the forgiveness of sin is so very important: because THAT is the way to regain immortality when you get your life BACK. You live, you sin, you learn, you face your death penalty as the bitter penalty for what you did. You repent, you forgive others as Jesus said; if your forgiveness is perfect you die and await the resurrection in Paradise. If your forgiveness is imperfect, you pass into Gehenna and remain there "until the last penny [of debt to God for sin] is paid". Either way, you are resurrected, as are all, and then you face judgment. You died the first time because you sinned. Had you not sinned, you would have been immortal. But you did. Of course, just exactly like Adam and Eve, you had help. Eve didn't walk over and eat, she was TEMPTED to do it by Satan. Think back to your first mortal sin. You remember it. We all do. You knew it was wrong, that's why you hid it. You were lulled into it. Your eyes saw that the fruit was lucious, and you stretched forth your hand and took it knowing you shouldn't. This is an old refrain, God sees it run in every life, and on center stage with each of us when it happens is the serpent. God knows that we didn't commit the sin that killed us completely of our own accord. He knows we , like Eve, were pushed, tempted. The question is, then what? God is prepared to forgive us. But he doesn't change his mind about his opinion of the physics. He is just: you sinned, the wages of sin is death, I sentence you to death, and there will be no reprieve. And so we each lose our immortality, that we could have had, with our first mortal sin. Now we walk through the world as men on death row, which we are. We know we're doomed and that we will one day be taken and executed. The question is: what do we do with the time we have left? And Jesus has told us that if we use it properly, we can be forgiven our sins, go to Paradise, and pass the second judgment so that when we get our life back, we can walk sinless into the City of God and live there with God. But he also said that if we refuse to learn even from our punishment, and refuse to do what he said now that our eyes are opened and we know good from evil, and we know we've done evil and must die for it - if we don't avail ourselves of the chance at forgiveness, that we will die with the sins on our head, unforgiven, and will pay dearly in Gehenna for it all. And maybe be thrown into the lake of fire too, at the end. He would spare us that. We don't have much of a chance against Satan the first time around. We're young and dumb (and full of come), and we are purposely led astray by the Devil. And then we're sentenced to death for it. The Devil is sentenced to death for it too. We lose our immortality on this go-round, but because we are not wholly to blame - God knows that Satan, whom he also made, before he made man - pushed us to it. We didn't lead ourselves astray any more than Eve did: we were pushed. So God gives us a second chance, not at regaining immortality in THIS life, but with the hope of the next one. Indeed, death is a pretty trivial thing once one realizes that flesh is sloughed off and put back on again: the spirit is the thing. So, why doesn't God just destroy Satan and the demons? The question is asked again and again. Scripture doesn't answer directly, but we can discern why in Scripture from Satan's conversation with God in Job. God breathes out spirits - the angels first, then us. And the spirits are his companions. God refers to the angelic host as "us". He has prepared rooms in his city for us, to live with him. He loves us, we are told again and again, and he wants our company and the company of the angels. He's not done making us. He keeps making more and more of us. We have characters. He likes that. He makes us this way, and gives us sub-creative license, for the same reason he made stunning, useless things like the Grand Canyon and the massive nebulae: he likes it that way. God is a God of emotion, throughout the Scripture. Greek and Latin Stoics and Mathematicians have attempted to turn him into a passionless pagan God of logical principles, but he never revealed himself as anything other than an emotional and opinionated being all across Scripture. We're in his image - we look like him, and there is much of him in us. He likes our company, and we CAN understand this: we like the company of our children, even though they come from us and are younger and don't know as much and aren't as wise. He made up his mind to destroy Satan and the evil spirits eventually, but he tarries, for he has a relationship with them too, and they were made before us. Jesus, the Son of God, hates Satan with a passion that God the Father does not equally demonstrate when he speaks to him in the case of Job. The Father knows what he has to do, in the end, and he will do it. Jesus was destined to be a man and to suffer in the flesh the outrages that Satan does, and to see and feel it up close and personal. Jesus really HATES Satan. The Father tarries in destroying Satan, just as he tarried in killing Adam, and tarried in killing Cain, and tarried in killing bad King Ahab. And has tarried thus far in killing you. Bring on the end of the world, and with that comes the end of Satan. But it also means the end of the world, this beautiful, marred world that the Father made good and that he loves, and it means ceasing to create new sons and daughters in us, for the spirits don't marry and reproduce like we do. It means that the Father will not have any new spirits of men from this earth past that point. And he actually does love us and doesn't want to stop making us yet. So he tarries. He knows what Satan does, but he tarries in ending it just as he always tarries, because he still loves the world. And because the Father's relationship with Satan is not the same as the Son's. Satan will be no prodigal son who returns, but given time, God makes more men, and many of them return. If God ends time, that ends too. God doesn't change his mind about the physics. We see the Son and Satan interact in the Desert. It is not a kind interaction. It is cold and formal, two enemies confronting, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau. Jacob and Esau were reconciled. Cain and Abel could never be because Cain's act was so irrevocable. We see the Father and Satan interact in Job, and that is a much friendlier, jesting interaction, a Father with a rogue son, who DOES obey him and who IS limited by him. The Scriptures make it clear that God himself sends devils to test men, and destroying angels. Jesus the Son will drive all that from his reign when he comes again in Glory, and he will do it swiftly. But he hasn't come nack yet, because the Father is not swift to move, he tarries. He tarries in carrying out the death sentence on us, and he tarries in carrying out on Satan too. And from Scripture we do see why, if we think about it. The Son is eager to see the Kingdom blossom and Satan destroyed. The Father will do it, eventually, but he is not so eager to destroy his beautiful world, to stop fathering new spirits, or to permanent end any of his creations. One day the Father will bring himself to do it, and to end forever his interactions with Satan, to doom Satan, and the world, and bring those he wants with him into the Kingdom. But he hasn't been ready yet. Revelation tells us that he's going to let Satan have his run first, to let Satan win, or nearly so, for a little while. Then he'll let the end come. He has never shown himself eager to cut things off. He let Adam live on for a long time. He let Cain live on. He let Moses live on even after Moses committed murder, and used him as a great Prophet, but finally took him in the end. He's going to let Satan have his moment and then it will be done. In good time. The Son is more impatient, and really hates the terrible things that Satan does to men. Of course, the Son has been in the flesh and knows just exactly how bad the bad is. And so it is no paradox, really, that the Father has decided to make the Son the judge of man. Because the Son knows what we go through, all of it. The Son hates Satan and would destroy him right now. The Father doesn't hate Satan the same way the Son does - there isn't hatred in Job - the Father somes sends Satan on errands. The Son does not. The Father knows what he needs to do, and he'll do it, but he tarries... And that's a good thing for us, because it gives us time to repent and prepare for execution and then living again. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   9:17:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #194. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, GarySpFc, liberator (#191) I think that word immortality means what it does to biologists: "will not die of its own accord". So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   13:28:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #195. To: SOSO (#194) So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? Not really. We're discussing two things, really. The first is what exactly DID happen all those years ago. I don't see Scripture speaking of human mortality in terms of Adam. I see it saying that Adam sinned and therefore he died, and we sin and therefore we die. The second is the definition of a word - mortality - that doesn't appear in the original story. So, what I am seeing is that you (and you are not alone in this - I am not making an accusation here, you are simply stating the traditional belief) believe that Adam's death had something to do with ending his pre-existing immortality, and that what he did caused some sort of taint to pass into the whole world that causes the death of everybody (and everything) since. That's what you think it says. I think it says that Adam died because he sinned, and we die because we sin. I don't think that there is any LINK in the story between Adam's death and our death. I think that the only place where a link SEEMS to be made is in a writing of Paul, that says "By one man death came into the world", but that sentence is read to say more than it actually DOES say. So, I think that the hoary tradition is not actually IN Scripture, and therefore I ignore it in my own thinking. But because other men do think it, and think that their traditional story is in Scripture (it isn't), that it's Truth. Really what we're arguing about in this respect is tradition versus revelation. The tradition inserts the concept of mortality. Scripture can't help us here, because that whole concept and word isn't there. So, we're arguing about an extra-biblical word that is central to an extra- biblical tradition. To me, what this has to do with is human mythmaking, and nothing at all to do with revelation from God. That says what it says, and it doesn't talk about immortality or losing it, in those terms. So, our second discussion, about the meaning of the words "mortal" and "immortal" is, to you, a discussion of Scripture, because you think that concept is in Scripture. But to me it's just a discussion of the parameters of a modern word, because neither the word nor the concept in the tradition you believe is actually IN the Scripture. It's added. When you add things, you have to argue a lot, and no answer is possible, because the text is silent and there's nothing to consult. Not sure that there's anywhere to go with this. I suppose a brief synopsis of our two beliefs is in order, so that at least we're both sure that we're fairly discussing the other's view. To my eyes, Scripture says that God made Adam substantial, told him that if he ate the fruit of a particular tree he'd die. Adam ate the fruit, and God was true to his warning: Adam died. The wages of sin is death. I see each of us as having been born under the same deal, and each being sentenced to death. Of course, the bigger picture now that Jesus came, told us, and was resurrected proving it, is that death isn't as big a deal as it appears to be: life goes on in the spirit on the other side, and eventually we'll get bodies back. That's what Scripture says or what can be directly implied from it, to my eyes. To your eyes, as far as I can tell, is the traditional belief: man was immortal, then Adam sinned and man became mortal through inherited sin. This sin is inherited, and it is this "Original Sin" that baptism washes off in babies. Mary had to be immaculately conceived (conceived without Original Sin) so that she could bear Jesus, otherwise Jesus would contract this Original Sin from Mary, and Jesus had to be sinless. That's the logic and the tradition. It's not in Scripture, but it's how traditionalists have reasoned it out, in part to explain why infant baptism is "necessary". The same logic produced Limbo, as the indeterminate state of unbaptized babies. I see an error that then creates further logical conundra that have to be resolved by making up stories. Of course, Marian apparitions are said to resolve these issues. There are lots of real, medically documented healings at Lourdes, and Mary is officially reported to have told Bernadette Soubirous "I am the Immaculate Conception". If Mary really did say that to Bernadette, then the vast body of Lourdes healings would be God's post-Biblical, 19th and 20th (and 21at) Century direct revelation of the Immaculate Conception, with the truth proven by miracle. And that, in turn, would mean that an Immaculate Conception was needed, which would mean that the doctrine of Original Sin would be true, and the doctrine of Baptism washing it away would also likely be true. And that would all mean that my cosmology of sin and death are wrong. It would not mean that my logic is wrong, because my logic comes directly from what Scripture says and doesn't say. It would mean that Scripture is not the complete revelation of God, and that we have to rely on what God has revealed SINCE the First Century, also, as being of greater weight than what God said in Scripture, just as what Jesus revealed is of greater weight for us than what God said to Moses. The revelation nearest in time contains the most relevant information. So, from my perspective, the REAL question at the root of this is whether or not revelation stopped in the First Century and we have to rely on Scripture Alone, or does it continue to this day, which means that we have to take the miracles that God has done since, and place them as being of equal authority to the Bible, and of greater directive power, because they answer questions that the Bible doesn't, and tell us what to do. So, to me, ultimately, that is REALLY what the discussion is about: are there any revelations from God since the written book of Revelation? The answer to that question is "Of course there are". So, I study the Bible in sequence, and see layers of revelation in it, and I see the revelations have continued since then. And I notice that all of the concrete physical miracles that can be forensically examined are Christian, which means Christianity is the one true faith. And I notice that the nature of certain of the revelations demonstrate the truth of certain things: transubstantiation of the eucharist, the peculiar blessing of saints, the special status of Mary...and I notice that the only Christian denomination that incorporates the result of all of these revelations into its doctrine is the Catholic Church. And therefore I think that the Catholic Church is the one that has God in it fully. I recognize that if the evidence of the miracles is a lie, then the logic fails. Therefore, my faith in the Catholic Church reposes on the honesty of the scientific reporters who detailed the aspects of the miracles. However, because I have directly spoken with God, if the scientists are liars and the miracles are frauds, that would leave the Catholic Church a fraud, and reopen the question for me about the reliability of Scripture as perhaps the full revelation from God. But nothing can raise a doubt in my mind about the actual EXISTENCE of God, because I have directly experienced miracles, spoken with him, seen the Holy Dove, seen a demon, seen the City from below and afar, been plunged into the black Abyss, and felt the heat of the flames beneath the soles of my feet. So all of those things I know directly and empirically are true, and I know that anybody who doubts any of THOSE details is wrong. Curiously, I note that there is very, very little about the Black Abyss in Scripture. There are only hints. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   17:20:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #196. To: Vicomte13 (#195) So here we are in 2015 arguing over the definition of a contemporary word in a contemporary language about something that happened thousands, if not millions, of years ago. How ironic, no? Not really. Yes really. "The first is what exactly DID happen all those years ago. I don't see Scripture speaking of human mortality in terms of Adam. I see it saying that Adam sinned and therefore he died, and we sin and therefore we die." The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   17:35:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #197. To: Vicomte13 (#195) So, our second discussion, about the meaning of the words "mortal" and "immortal" is, to you, a discussion of Scripture, because you think that concept is in Scripture. But to me it's just a discussion of the parameters of a modern word, because neither the word nor the concept in the tradition you believe is actually IN the Scripture. You are totally wrong. The word die is in introduce the very beginning of Scripture. It was introduced in Scipture by God Himself. If that isn't a direct reference to mortality by God nothing is. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   17:39:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #198. To: SOSO (#196) The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. That is indeed the generally accepted belief of all of the major Christian denominations that I know of: Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, etc. The universally accepted belief of all Christian denominations before 1500 included prayers to saints. Today, many Christian denominations abhor the practice. Consensus gentium is consensus gentium. I don't accord it any weight at all. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   22:27:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #199. To: SOSO (#196) The generall accepted position of all the christian based sects is that thanks to Adam and Eve man is born with sin, namely Original Sin. Some sects believe that the newborn's soul is lost if it dies before it was bapitized. That is NOT the belief of all Christians. John 3:19 states the basis of the Judgement is rejection of the light (Christ), because men love sin. Babies do not qualify as moral agents. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”h The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Jn 3:19–21. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-17   22:44:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #200. To: SOSO (#197) (Edited) The word die is in introduce the very beginning of Scripture. It was introduced in Scipture by God Himself. If that isn't a direct reference to mortality by God nothing is. I don't dispute that. What isn't introduced is the word immortality, nor the assertion of it. "Do this and you'll die" is a warning. The rest of it - don't do this and you'll never die - and because you did it everybody after you will also die and they would have otherwise never died - that is quite a tarte-a- la-creme there. It doesn't follow. Indeed, the notion that there was a tree of life in the garden, the eating of which would instill something sounding like immortality, seems rather superfluous if Adam and Eve were already immortal. But really, what is all of this? It's building a whole vast edifice of doctrine on Inferences built on inferences. Apparently you see the traditional beliefs right there in Scripture. (I don't say "apparently" to be provocative. Rather, I say it because you've spoken about what "Christian sects" believe, but I haven't seen you say what you personally actually believe, or if you believe anything in particular. This is not a criticism. It's just that I can speak TO you and WITH you, and I am, but I can only speak OF sects and what you and I think sects believe. So, I think that I'm discussing these things with you because you believe certain things, some of which are traditional denominational beliefs, and I have different views of the issue, and we are in contention over the facts. That's what I think we're doing here.) I read it, and I certainly see the statements on which those traditional beliefs are constructed, but I don't find the actual statements there. I see less than you do there. I see a handful of facts and a great towering cream cake of inferences. I'll draw an inference myself from this conversation: this is where the trench line is going to settle on this particular subject: you see something, I see something different. We keep looking at it again and again, and we're still not seeing the same thing. I already shed a lot of Internet ink. I'm not sure that it does anybody any good for me to repeat myself over and over again. Perhaps it would help if we isolated the actual text about which we speak. Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-17   22:58:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #201. To: GarySpFC (#199) That is NOT the belief of all Christians. I am aware of that. So what? That only adds to the weight of my contention about the imperfections of the written Bible. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. " Man had no sense of good and evil until Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. One of the consequences of that was that God condemned them to death. The implication is that if they had obeyed Him they would have lived in their mortal state forever. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   23:42:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #202. To: Vicomte13 (#200) "Do this and you'll die" is a warning. It is more than that. Christian notion of original sin. It explicitly appears first in 2 Esdras 7:118 (a book of the Apocrypha) and was developed by Paul who said, “Sin came into the world through one man” and “One man’s trespass led to condemnation for all” (Romans 5:12, 18 in the New Testament). Tag Adam, you're it. SOSO  posted on  2015-01-17   23:52:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #203. To: SOSO (#201) I am aware of that. So what? That only adds to the weight of my contention about the imperfections of the written Bible. Your unbelief in the face of Scripture amazes me. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org/Bible GarySpFC  posted on  2015-01-18   9:53:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply         .       .       . Comments (204 - 223) not displayed. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

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