Believe it or not Wouldee I understand precisely where you are coming from with this. But for me it’s totally meaningless.

It would be no ‘victory’ for an omnipotent God to overcome anything. You seem to be totally ignoring the fact that this is supposedly the same deity that created this whole scenario from square one.

This is a real problem with so many people who try to push the Jesus Crucifixion as having such merit. Everything that is required to give this picture merit firmly stands on the shoulders of the whole mythology that came before it.

You can’t ignore the crotchety old judge, and the fact that he’s the one who originally created the whole scenario in the first place.

The bottom line for me is simple.

Toss out any preconceived religious pictures of God. And think of creating a universe from square one.

You have the following two choices,…. (actually you have any choices you want, but lets only consider the following two for simplicity)

You can either,…

1. Create a universe in which you will be creating many souls, the vast majority of which you will have to cast into an eternal hell fire.

Or,…

2. You can create a universe in which all souls you create will be of your spirit and return to you when the play is over.

Which would you chose to do?

Create an imperfect universe that ends up with a lot of losers spending eternal agony in hell? (something that will serve no good purpose to you as a God, and certainly no good purpose for the losers who go to hell. )

Or,…

Create a perfect universe where no one loses.

If God is truly all-powerful, all-wise, all perfect, then I’m sure God would pick the better scenario here.

To claim that God can’t make this choice is to claim that God is both less than perfect, and less than all-powerful.

So the biblical picture of God having to have himself crucified to save his own creation is an utter absurdity unless that God had no choice. But that would imply a less than perfect, and less than all-powerful, God.

So it doesn’t matter how you try to sell the crucifixion of Christ. You can dress it up to the hilt with all sorts of romantic notions. In the final analysis it doesn’t hold water with the idea that God is all-powerful and perfect. It flies in the very face of what this religion claims that God is supposed to be in the first place.

I am with you wholeheartedly on the churchianity issue wouldee!

No problem I reply to a post that catches my attention before reading the rest all the time!!

Believe it or not Wouldee I understand precisely where you are coming from with this. But for me it’s totally meaningless.

It would be no ‘victory’ for an omnipotent God to overcome anything. You seem to be totally ignoring the fact that this is supposedly the same deity that created this whole scenario from square one.

This is a real problem with so many people who try to push the Jesus Crucifixion as having such merit. Everything that is required to give this picture merit firmly stands on the shoulders of the whole mythology that came before it.

You can’t ignore the crotchety old judge, and the fact that he’s the one who originally created the whole scenario in the first place.

The bottom line for me is simple.

Toss out any preconceived religious pictures of God. And think of creating a universe from square one.

You have the following two choices,…. (actually you have any choices you want, but lets only consider the following two for simplicity)

You can either,…

1. Create a universe in which you will be creating many souls, the vast majority of which you will have to cast into an eternal hell fire.

Or,…

2. You can create a universe in which all souls you create will be of your spirit and return to you when the play is over.

Which would you chose to do?

Create an imperfect universe that ends up with a lot of losers spending eternal agony in hell? (something that will serve no good purpose to you as a God, and certainly no good purpose for the losers who go to hell. )

Or,…

Create a perfect universe where no one loses.

If God is truly all-powerful, all-wise, all perfect, then I’m sure God would pick the better scenario here.

To claim that God can’t make this choice is to claim that God is both less than perfect, and less than all-powerful.

So the biblical picture of God having to have himself crucified to save his own creation is an utter absurdity unless that God had no choice. But that would imply a less than perfect, and less than all-powerful, God.

So it doesn’t matter how you try to sell the crucifixion of Christ. You can dress it up to the hilt with all sorts of romantic notions. In the final analysis it doesn’t hold water with the idea that God is all-powerful and perfect. It flies in the very face of what this religion claims that God is supposed to be in the first place.




Abra,

Precisely the point.

Jesus is the one that created the mythology as you call it.

He is the one that is recorded as speaking to Adam.

Sufficient, don't you think to be the entitlement to set the example as it was meant?

Which then begs the question, Who was that that spoke to Eve?

It wasn't Eve that is depicted as being spoken to first and foremost and certainly there are two voices depicted as having been present giving the distinction between "life" and the "knowledge of good and evil" .

That has been described many different ways throughout time, but the observation of such things has not been a recent one. It is an age old comparison.

In any case, who is man to question God's perfection?

i don't rest on the preponderance of history's consensus about God's truth but God has answered me from the midst of the tale told and superceded it's import by acknowldging Himself, regardless.

How God chooses to display what God will is God's perogative, and one's faithfulness is but an echo of God's faithfulness.

Likewise, man's faith is dependent on that which man applies it and that is either answered faithfully or it isn't.

More appropriately, faith that is answered and justified in faithfulness requires some faithfulness concretely established as worthy of faith without doubt or unbelief.

It is faith that is variable, after all. But it also faith which is present in man's content and character in any case.

The difference is how that faith given is applied to recognize faithfulness that matches the faith.

Jesus recognized and taught that not all would embrace him, and went so far as to say that there are others that apart from the moment in time and the place and tenor of his message would receive him.

That does not preclude the God of the Holy Bible from being faithful, but it does demand that he will be faithful to the faith applied to such a premise should one embrace it.

That does not negate it's veracity, but rather, stipulateds that should God be involved at all in it, then God should be faithful to acknowledge the faith of those that receive it's message as from God.

Ultimately, for Christianity, Abra, that means that the Holy Spirit is required for the faith of the believer to be established in the relationship and fellowship with God and God's faithfulness.


Short of that, Christianity is null and void and the faithfulness of God is unmeritorious.

There is no Christianity without the Holy Spirit.



As for your choice of two Abra-isms of God's plan for my life goes, Neither of your scenerios holds any merit to me.

If for no other reason, than that you have lifted the "crotchety old judge" from a poem and applied it to two choices born of your imagination, which quite frankly, is the sum total of your absurdity.

And that sum, and its currency, is onlysomething that can be sold with the currency of your own making.

Selling that requires that you be a God capable of giving a measure of faith to exercise transactions with.

That is just an argumentative machination Abra.

Better that you just abandon your contempt of Christ and God's affinities for the Holy Spirit and continue on your merry way proselytizing your artistic license with a more receptive audience.

I still am faced with your ignorance and lack of focus in light of your distractions which are horrifically ungrounded and random. There are no parallels and comparisons between your imaginings and Christianity, in any regard.

Too bad that your sceenerios require obedience and accession to them to establish their credibility.

It still has nothing to do with what God has already revealed.

And that God has revealed what God has, also testifies of spiritual doctrines counterfeit to His intentions for man, which are equal to your infantile alternatives, at best.

You still exhibit no understanding of Christianity and even less of the content and character of a Holy God that requires your approval to exist on His own terms.

Your choices are yours and that's fine.

Express them without bad mouthing things that elude you and are not palettable to you.

Your constructs need not be justified by tearing down Jesus as given.

Your constructs have no merit in doing so.

Stand in your faith faithfully.

Rejoice in your own joy.

Surely there must be some treasure trove that backs the currency of your beliefs other than tramping that which you have renounced.

If in fact you have renounced it.

Which is, saddly, not envident as long as you continue to wrestle with it.

You make no sense to me.

Your mind is splintered and intractible and whatever it is that you are attempting to say is incoherent to me.

You are always all over the map wanting things many diffrerent ways.

Well, go for it and leave Christianity and the Holy Bible out of it.

Renounce it and mean it and leave it.

Doesn't that define the course of action that renunciation represents?

Wipe the dust off your feet and never look back. Quit the torment. It offends many Christians as just ill will seeking a victim, Abra, so long as you justify your beliefs at the expense of others beliefs not conrarian as yours.

You never offend me, my friend. You are one of the nonbeliever here who deserves all my respect.
However, Santa Claus has not sustain a myth in every single culture in the world for over 6,000 years.

You’re coming from inside the mythology.

That would be like me asking you, “Who are you to question Zeus’ authority?”

If people don’t question things they’ll never discover truth. We not only have a right to question whether a specific doctrine is true, we have an obligation to question it for the sake of discovering truth.



Well, it shouldn’t offend anyone.

Just about every Christian I have ever met has laughed at my belief in pantheism. Do you think I was offended by that?

Intelligent people aren’t offended by serious intellectual inquiry only immature people who haven’t yet gotten their ego under control would be offended by such things.

If you faith is so weak that you are offended when someone suggests that it might be wrong that’s a serious problem that you have to do with on your own. Perhaps you shouldn’t’ be on a religious discussion forum if you are that easily offended. You don’t need to participate in religious discussion if you can’t handle insights that are beyond the scope of what you’d like to comfortably believe.

I have to assume that I’m talking to intelligent adults. If that’s not the case, then maybe we should rename this site, “Kiddy Town”.

The bottom line here is that I’ve made very good points of why the religion that you believe in most likely isn’t true. And this bothers you deeply because you can see that I’m making perfect sense. So now you’re trying to accuse me of bursting your bubble like as if it’s my fault that you can’t handle reality???

I’m sorry Wouldee, but to use your own words, “Get over yourself”

If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen. Don’t ask the chef to leave.

No one is forcing you to read these forums Wouldee. If you are finding them too disturbing then go find something else to do with you life. You're free to skip over my posts anytime you like. I promise they won't jump out and bite you.

No one is forced to read my posts if they don't like hearing what I have to say.

Very nicely put

The only thing that is sad is that you can't see how uplifting that poem really is. How much promise it holds for you. Be brave enough to follow the truth and it will not fail you .

Peace in truth.

who is proselytizing now?

Me Baby!!!!!!

I have said it often. The Day Christians stop doing it so will I. I will be so glad to move onto something much more interesting.

Is that what Jesus is to you? An insurance policy?

I believe in Jesus, not because I think he’s God and can offer me salvation and everlasting life. I believe in Jesus because he was a man who taught great morals.

Obviously I’m not a very good Christian because I don’t expect anything from him beyond that.

I feel sad for those who only turn to him for the gifts that ‘churchianity’ claims he is offering.

Imaging how happy he would be if people actually loved him and followed him without any need to buy them off with promises of salvation and everlasting life.

As I stated before, I would refuse his ‘gifts’ anyway. Even if he were real. I would politely decline them and request death instead. That would be my free choice. A choice that he gave to me if he is genuinely my creator. I would respectfully choose death, and he would fully understand why if he genuinely is all-knowing and all-wise.

So even if the myth is true, I would decline the so-called ‘gifts’. There’s simply too much fine print involved. They aren’t ‘free’ gifts, they are very costly and I’m simply not interested in purchasing them because the fee to pay for them is eternal. Like a credit card bill that never ends.

If you think those ‘gifts’ are free you better go back and re-read the book.

i'll be ur shadow

Amen! When Christians stop proselytizing Christianity I'll stop unproselytizing it.

Wouldee's after me to stop unproselytizing it, but he doesn't seem to have a problem when it's being proselytized.

I think it should be fair-game in both directions.

That it's why I said. I'll be his shadow, and not just his.

I'm sorry for your loss. My God died, too, but then came back to life, so I too am resurrected into a new life with Him. I wouldn't want a god that I could outgrow! My god is God! Forever!

aBRA.

tRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS WITHOUT FEELING DISRESPECTED, IF POSSIBLE.

I don't think like you. Nor do I measure the motives of others with the measure of myself.

You, on the other hand, assume that I think like you and am motivated in speaking to you on your level .

It is not so.

Ascribing attributes to my words from your own filtered reservoir is amiss.

Further, you fail to see how crass you are.

It would be prudent to chew on things and sleep o them.

perhaps tomorrow you will see yourself in a different light.

In a less glaring reflection based on your own sensitivites staring right bck at you.

Perhaps if you wore a little humility you would have a fuller spectruum for your reflection.

Bashing is not your calling, nor is saving the owrld from anything not contrarian.

Rejoice in the enlightenment of your own beliefs without incessantly belittling your renunciations.


I am repeating myself again, and that is not good.

Get over yourself.

abra.

here you go again, mischaracterizing my words deliberately once more.

Not to mention putting words in my mouth.

Speak for yourself, whicjh is a completely foreign concept for you.

You do the same thing with your bashiung of Christianity out of both sides of your mouth and then wipe your sleeve and say, "what did I do wrong?"

You don;t like it going both ways.

You have had your little reign of passve-aggresive terror unchecked for far too long..

That was not tacit approval, nor was it your gift from any, Abra.

Your momentum has gotten you far off course AND YOU MUST BE CHECKED.


Stop your abuse and see it for what it is.

the prselytizing you do for pantheism is your own hypocrisy. Must you also double down andproselytize a false christianity and unprselytize your machinations as well?

Get over your arrogant self righteousness and make sense.


You just aren't used to being called out.

Get used to it Abra.

Everywhere you turn, when free time warrants and you get out of line, I shall remind you.

Not a stalking threat at all

Just time is up for you.

You are done making a mockery of anything not to your liking in the bashing and disrespectfulk and intolerant foolishness which you have come to enjoy as though you have a right to it


You have no rights here, Abra,

NO ONE DOES.

these are priveleges afforded by a private enterprise.

Go stand on the corner and spout out.

No one posted there for you to glean inspiration from on how to insult and offend, but I am sure you will learn.

You will probably be cited for disturbing the peace. At least then you would have some governance over your foolish and childish rants.

But here, Abra, do not be so mis;led to think that you have any rights to be abusive and offensive, no matter your mission. No matter your high opinion of yourself.

Everything you do is a privelege, and yours end where others begin.

If you want to debate ypour ilk, start a thread.

If yo want to bash Chrisrtiuanity and profess your authoritarian wqualifications, then do so in the snactity of your own threads.

Your incessant mischaracterizations and generally conclusory diatribe is not going to be tolerated any more with tacit approval from me by silence.

No more.

Never again.

You offend too many.

You hhave no decency, and it is being reminded you that you are out of line.

get used to it.


as long as you misrepresent Christianity at all. You have renounced it and are not a Christian and that gives you no right to ponttificate to others what constitutes Chjristianity.

Proselytize your pantheisim. Start your threads.

Babysit them.

Stop hijacking the others that are expressing their joy in things renounced by you.

It is not your job to be the savior of JSH.

it is not your right at all.

Get over your self righteous arrogance and be decent.

Show some manners, man!!!!!


and Quit antagonizing me with your mischaracterizatiuons of my words.

You are abusive and offensive and insulting.

Slander is slander Abra.

You have no rights here above any others.

Remember that.

Seriously, Abra.


REMEMBER THAT!!!!!

Yes it is Wouldee. And you have been slandering my character for the past several days with totally unwarranted and unfounded accusations claming that I’m arrogant, cowardice, and that I avert responsibility, etc., etc. None of these things unfounded accusations have any basis in truth. That’s slander Wouldee. And you’re doing this all because you don’t like what I have to say.

Now please show me where I’ve slandered you?

All of your accusations and name-calling against me are totally untrue slander. So why are you accusing me of slander? Show me where I’ve slandered you and I’ll apologize for it. I don’t even recall doing it, but if I did it was probably in reaction to your slander against me.

I can say this with confidence because I know that I don’t slander people directly without provocation. That’s totally out of character for me. I just don’t do that sort of thing. However, I might have slung some of your own mud back at you. I do fall victim to retaliation on occasion unfortunately.

So your accusing me of slandering you? Show be where I’ve done it? Put up or shut up.

In your last post you quoted me in a response to Reverend Rabbit, and then you accuse me of twisting your words? How can that be? I wasn’t even quoting you nor reverencing you at all. That post made no reference to you at all.

I swear Wouldee, you appear to me to be having some sort of nervous breakdown or something. I don’t mean that with disrespect, but you appear to be totally delusional about our interaction. You’re making things up that have absolutely no basis in truth.

Show me where I’ve slandered you if you feel that I have. You seem to be quite vocal of accusing me of slander. I don’t recall saying anything negative about you. And if I did, I promise that it wasn’t intentional because I don’t even harbor any ill-will toward you despite your viperous personal attacks against me.

I think you're just upset because you don’t like my religious views and so you’re trying to discredit me personally rather than address the real issues that are bothering you. But that’s slander Wouldee. That’s the very thing that you are accusing me of doing – totally unwarrantedly I might add.

Abra,

It sounds like he wants you to stay out of other people's threads and just create your own threads.

JB

Yes, he has suggested that. But he also seems to be accusing me of slander. I personally feel that he's got that totally backwards. He's the one who's be slandering me, not the other way around.

The preachers have always wanted to use these forums for uninterrupted sermons. I have often told them to just start a ‘church’ thread and make it clear that their thread is to be used for preaching their views only.

The problem is that this is against the forum rules. It’s prohibited to use a thread for proselytizing or preaching a specific religion. Read the rules that are specific to the religious forums.

What he’s asking me to do is actually in violation of the rules.

What people don’t seem to get is that these are public forums for discussion. Their aren’t to be used for sermons and preaching. Yet people try to do this. Read the OP of the following threads,…

Why the Cross? – that OP was a sermon, not an opening for discussion.

One Solitary Life – that OP was an advertisement for Christianity – religious spam. Not an opening for discussion.

What the Bible Says is So – that OP was a sermon complete with asking the readers to convert to Christianity. The sermon ended with the following.,..



This is all fine and good, except for one thing. All these threads are blatant violations of the forum rules.

They aren’t opening for discussions on religious topics. These people are trying to use these forums as a pulpit to preach their religion. It’s actually underhanded. They think that for God they can break the rules. Anything goes if your preaching the word of God, you can even lie through you teeth if you want. You cant totally show complete disrespect for the rules and regulations of the forums and shove your religion into the face of other (with absolutely NO INTENT to discuss its merits).

That’s not what these forums are for.

These people are just upset because I heckle their attempts to break the forums rules.

They just what to get all the hecklers out of their “Church Threads” so they can continue to try to shove their religion down other people’s throats unimpeded.

But that’s against the forum rules.

If they want to ask Mike and Van to change the rules to allow churches to be set up in the Religious forum then they should petition that request.

I would certainly honor that. If they change the rules I’ll abide by the new rules.

But in the meantime the religious preachers are the one’s who are guilty of the sin of breaking the rules, not me.

Let’s just get it strait of who is breaking the rules around here!!!

If people want the rules changed let them petition the site owners. Then they can set up their churches and preach all day long with no interruptions.