What leads me to the Christian faith
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:45 AM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
1. The thousands of people that have willingly suffered and died at the hands of evildoers while serving Christ's message -- the vast majority of these being rational, intelligent people (this includes the thousands of martyrs that died for Christ relatively shortly after his death);
2. The thousands of miracles performed -- many substantiated by multitudes of rational, intelligent people (for example, see the Fatima miracle, which was witnessed by thousands, including skeptics, and there are so many more);
3. The pangs in the billions of hearts of rational, intelligent followers (it's the only thing that can satisfy the soul for billions of people, indicating there was likely some design there on the part of a creator);
4. For everything that we have now to come from nothing would defy our current understanding of physics and seems counter-intuitive (why would evolution favor a self-sacrificing human that craves a God?);
5. Given all of the above, it merely seems more likely than not that: 1) There is a God; 2) He loves us greatly; 3) He wants us to love and serve him; 4) True love may require free will, which may not be possible if it were made completely clear what is going on.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43288989)
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:51 PM Author: greedy corner
lmao
ufos came exactly to the day and the hour to fatima, portugal when the fatima children said.
people will really go out their to explain things away that are inconvenient.
so aliens met them in the field. showed them the visions over several days. told them the secrets. and then gave them eucharist and then told them to gather people together at that place and that day. lol.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290718) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:53 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
It terrifies me that so many may go to "hell."
I think the empty hell heresy is rooted in the belief that God would not abandon his children...
The Bible does say that only few will enter the gates of heaven... but how is that reconcilable with a fair and just God? It's beyond my human understanding to know. All I know is that it is immensely frightening, and I hope that people know how much God loves us.
Being a morally average person myself (and someone that has not been subject to many trials), I ask myself what does it take to get to Heaven? What does it mean to have true "faith" in Jesus?
Yes, I say that I "believe" in Jesus, but often times when tested, my faith falls short (as I'm sure it does with a lot of people) -- does this mean that I won't make the cut into heaven? Well, Jesus said that all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed... which I'd certainly consider myself having (but only because I was raised in a Catholic environment) -- what will happen to those raised and constrained within other circumstances? The Mormons believe they will have a second chance to acknowledge Jesus as God. Maybe that is right and would seem to go with the idea of a just and fair God, but I still can't reconcile how "only a few" will make it -- again, it is beyond my potential to understand, and in the end, all we can do is have faith and keep trying.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290741) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:59 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
What does it mean to "believe"?
Can we say we "believe" when we continue to knowingly sin and work against his Plan?
Do we just tell ourselves we "believe" so that we can feel good about where we think we are going, all the while following our sinful desires?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290786) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:10 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
Thanks, GJR. I love your thoughtful responses.
I think what you're saying encapsulates the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism.
To be honest, I think the "anxiety" can be helpful -- looking back at our actions and beliefs and trying to improve/strengthen them can bring us closer to Jesus.
When you say my individual faith doesn't save me, what do you mean? What other type of faith is there?
Also, you agree that we don't really believe if we're working against Jesus' plan -- so how can we not be anxious about that?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290847)
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:31 PM Author: Dun Insanely Creepy Weed Whacker Address
I don't think "anxiety" is ever helpful, actually. Confusion, anxiety, worry, are not of God, and that's why Jesus invites us to cast those things onto him. "Fear" is a better word and probably what you really mean here. We are told "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling". Fear can bolster faith while anxiety undermines it.
Re: individual faith, what I mean is that focusing too much on yourself is not what Christ wanted. It puts the onus too much on our own completely inadequate ability to believe. Remember, even Christ's disciples didn't believe what was right in front of them. How are we supposed to approach any level of "faith" that Jesus would deem adequate for salvation? We can't. Instead, you need to focus less on yourself and more on Christ and his promise. If you believe that Christ lives, is God, and his salvific mission was successful, then you are saved. That was his promise. That's all the "faith" you need.
Your faith is likely never to be tested in a real way anyway. You will live your whole life in anxiety and worry if you constantly question whether or not you "really believe." Ask Jesus to give you comfort with his promise and he will.
As a follow up to this general line of thought, I have put myself into horrible existential depression by trying to intellectualize all of this. While you can definitely engage with Christianity on a purely intellectual level (Origen, Aquinas, et. al.), you can't let your intellect be the source of your faith. I personally think that Jesus mentioning childlike faith was a message to people like us.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290956)
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:09 AM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
I think the multitude of innocents willing to suffer great pains, including death, for the purposes of serving Jesus is unparalleled.
The difference is in number and in fruits (you will know them by their fruits).
Self-sacrifice for a small cult often is apparent on its face that the fruits are bad, and the participants tend to be of a smaller group.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43289057) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:01 AM Author: Grizzly Library
Isn’t it funny how the strangest times, whether culturally or in our personal lives or both, often help the most to illuminate the big picture?
Everything is a valuable learning experience; nothing is random:
“This too will become a part of my tapestry,” as Tolkien said.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43289028) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:25 AM Author: primrose alcoholic space pistol
That contradicts an earlier post you made mentioning the possibility that God's plan doesn't work if He reveals it to everyone. That is, faith can't exist without mystery
On a more fundamental level it seems incorrect to think that worldly, graspable events or data could evoke a spiritual awakening. Miracles or even the historicity of the Bible are under constant attack, and a layperson isn't capable of investigating all of that to the extent that they'll be satisfied either way, so they'll default to believing all the esteemed scientists and professors who say it's bullshit
All of that is to say this approach is trying to use material events to achieve something as ineffable as faith, and I don't think it can flow that way (for the reason mentioned above re: God's desire for faith and faith's requirement of mystery).
I don't have a good answer here and it's one of the reasons I'm not as quick to write off reformed theology anymore. It's entirely possible God chooses who will come to have faith in Him and who won't, and this can't be changed.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43289112) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:13 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
I wanted to clarify my point -- I don't think it's that "faith can't exist without mystery," but maybe it is.
Rather, my point is that "Love" is only really possible with "free will," and if God were to come down from the clouds and retain a permanent place in the sky, constantly saying "follow me for heaven, and if you don't, hell is where you will go," then that would cause a level of fear that would make it almost impossible to have "free will," which is necessary for true love. This is the only way that I can come up with a "logical" justification as to why God doesn't make himself more apparent and why miracles seem sparse and hard to prove, all the while, there are some events that have been witnessed by thousands (the Fatima miracles, etc.).
One could argue that Jesus made it clear and that refutes what I'm saying... but again, it's unclear to me how else to harmonize how something so evident could happen while it is so hard to see hard evidence most of the time.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290487) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 10:57 PM Author: hairraiser jap
I don't think this is true. We need to first both caveat this and say that is impossible for us to fully comprehend God and his power and how it interacts with the universe. Time as a dimension is particularly hard to fathom for us.
That being said, I can see how free will can exist with an all powerful, all knowing god. I use this simple example to help me conceptualize it:
Say my favourite hockey team is playing tonight but I need to work an evening shift, so I record the game. On the way back from work I hear the final score. When I watch the recorded game, knowing how it ends, have I deprived the players on the ice of free will?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43294190) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 11:29 PM Author: Dun Insanely Creepy Weed Whacker Address
I was being a bit flippant in that post, but I don't think your example works in that case because you only know about the outcome after the fact. If you had a magical tape with a recording of the game from before it happened, then I think by any reasonable definition the players would not have free will during the game. Free will implies to me that your choices could change "destiny" or "fate". If things were always going to play out exactly as they are, are you really free at all?
By the way, experimental evidence seems to suggest that we aren't really in the captain's seat with respect to choices we make. Brain scans have shown evidence that we decide what to do before our conscious mind is even aware of it.
This debate has gone on for hundreds of years and it ultimately turns on what you mean by free will. A satisfactory definition is elusive and always will be.
I have just never understood how God could have created people knowing that they will go to hell. I don't think about it too much anymore though, and ultimately it doesn't really matter. God is God whether he is good or evil or whether his justice comports with our own sense of right and wrong.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43294350) |
Date: October 18th, 2021 7:23 AM Author: hairraiser jap
In a very crude summary:
The existence of the universe and ourselves + my view on moral absolutes leads to a God
The strength of the historicity of Christ and his disciples during and after his death leads me to Christianity. The much more obvious contradictions and flaws in the handful of other major religions I've looked at leads me away for them.
The writings of the early church fathers leads me to the Catholic Church. If I'm going to be a Christian, I want to be the type of Christian that existed right after Christ's death and who knew the apostles or was one connection removed.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43289608) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 12:46 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
1. One of the main tenets of Islam, I believe, is that violent subjugation of non-believers is right -- this doesn't accord with what seems "true" in the hearts of billions.
2. Another main tenet of Islam is that Jesus never said he is God -- this is clearly refuted by so many things that Jesus said, as evidenced in the Bible, such as "I am." -- Moreover, Islam doesn't refute anything said by Jesus, just that Paul made a bunch of stuff up about Jesus, as if that is the only place where Jesus is claimed to be God.
3. Judiasm is clearly an ethnocentric and supremacist religion maintaining that a certain group of related people are the only "chosen" people -- this would seem to make no sense that God would create so many of his children to not be "chosen."
4. Are there any other major religions that deserve being discussed?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43290680) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 10:47 PM Author: hairraiser jap
When it comes to Islam, I think the killshot in my mind is the Quran mixing up Mary, the mother of Jesus and Mary ("Miriam") the sister of Moses. You cant explain it away. Unlike the bible where it is theoretically possible to still be Christian without an inerrant bible, the entire Islamic edifice crumbles if the Quran has even one tiny factual error thanks to the claim Mohammad makes about its creation.
Mohammed was an illiterate dumbass warlord who had scraps of information about Judiasm and Christianity and cobbled together an "update patch" to place on top of them. His imperfect knowledge led to this mistake, as well as others, in the Quran.
Another similar example of this is that because the main Christians in Mohammad's vicinity were Nestorians, he clearly adopted their heresy and thought it was legitimate Christian belief (and wrote the Quran to imply that).
For Judiasm, I think the killshot is that the temple was destroyed in 70AD. The religion is dead at that point. Post-Christ, the jews scrambled to reform their religion around the Talmud, and thus rabbinic judiasm was born. Its entirely an artifact of man, created as a response to the loss of their temple and the rise of the clear messiah which they rejected.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43294130) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 1:47 PM Author: concupiscible blue cruise ship mexican
1. The message of Islam doesn't align with what is in our hearts (e.g., violent subjugation).
2. Islam doesn't have the widely-verified and numerous (thousands) of miracles.
3. Islam contends that Jesus never said he is God -- this is completely contradicted by the gospels themselves.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43291035) |
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Date: October 18th, 2021 10:53 PM Author: hairraiser jap
Islam is inherently contradictory. A reasonable person can reconcile the entire bible (and draw clear typology and predictions from the OT to the NT). In contrast, the Quran literally changes its playbook for how people ought to conduct themselves and behave, just so happening to mirror what Mohammad is doing at the time (peaceful parts vs. violent parts).
Below is a passage in the Quran. Please tell me if you think an angel whispered this to Mohammad, or if Mo-mo was just annoyed at people staying too long at his house after dinner and didnt want anyone touching his wahmen after his death so he manufactured this:
"O you who believe, do not enter the houses of the Prophet, unless you are permitted for a meal, not (so early as) to wait for its preparation. But when you are invited, go inside. Then, once you have had the meal, just disperse, and (do) not (sit for long) being keen for a chat. This (conduct of yours) hurts the Prophet, but he feels shy of (telling) you (about it), but Allah is not shy of the truth. And when you ask any thing from them (the blessed wives of the Prophet), ask them from behind a curtain. That is better for the purity of your hearts and their hearts. It is not allowed for you that you hurt Allah’s Messenger, nor that you ever marry his wives after him. Indeed, it would be an enormity in the sight of Allah."
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4944435&forum_id=2#43294168) |
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