I don't believe that. I believe we are ultimately defined by our responses to the trials and tribulations (and the good things too) that happen to us.

We cannot control what happens. We can only control how we respond to those things.

Sorry about your mother Fanta.

the political correct term for a Christian is an "Unspecified Jesus Technician"

How can an emotionally devastated 12 yr old be in control of what happens anoasis? How much control can they have when they are left to deal with getting over that kind of trauma with no outside help.
You always hear, time heals everything, but that isn't true. Believe me it isn't.
Sure I dealt with it and survived, but it was at a cost. I became cold and emotionally detached, reckless and uncaring. It affected every aspect of my life and governed every decision I made for years to come. I cared not what happened to me and even less about what happened to those around me. Holidays were dreaded and the problems became worse at those times.
As time went on I became better at incorporating my emotions and psychological scars into a norm. A norm that I held on to and used to cope day to day, year to year.
My tribulations became me and I became them! I grew to enjoy hurting like a heroin addict enjoys the high. I reveled in my anger and determined it a necessity.
I grew comfortable with it and mastered it like a chess champion masters the game.

Later, 10 yrs ago or so, I witnessed and experienced a few things which changed my hate for god to understanding, but I am who I am because of my 25 year journey and I can never change that!

Ok, I will leave now, and not bother yall again, but JB asked and I tried to explain how one can hate God!

I'm sorry my friend for what you have to passed through. I don't have words of confort (not because I don't feel your pain, but because I become speechless). I just know you are a great person.
I'm glad that your feeling is not hate anymore.

TLW

Your answer told a tragic story of why you were angry for 25 years. It did not address the question of why you were angry at God or why you blamed God for the death of your mother.

The only thing I can surmise is that people falsely believe that God is in control of everything so they blame God for everything bad that happens.

If God is in control of everything, then he is to blame for all deaths, all pain, all horrible wars, all disease etc. People will still tell you that God is in control of everything.

That is just not true.

But my question is how does one hate God when nobody has met him or her or It?

The same question can be asked to people who claim to love God with all their hearts. How can they love God when they have not seen or met him her or It? God is just an idea. It is a concept. It or he does not walk the earth among men engendering hatred or love. If so, then please point him out. Please arrange a meeting or a press conference. We can all meet God in person and then decide whether to love or hate him or her.

JB

The problem is when a person tries to justify the nonexistance of God due to the fact we can't see Him.
Ofcourse if our mind is limited to the fact that we can't hate or love Him because we have not seen Him. It's fairly obvious that we will not find a logical answer to such question.
Then we find fallacies such as "God it's an idea or a concept."

TLW

Honestly speaking? Does it really matter what is said or not on a forum with many you will probly never meet?

What really matters is your contact with other people & the faith you share with them etc etc. That's where the REAL impact is & not on some forum or the Oprah Winfrey show.

hehehehehe That is sooo funny to me how many just follow any old pied piper. My heros are real people who blessed my life with their wonderful friendship & example.

That is not an answer.

How does one love God? How does one hate God? That is the question.

JB

It was not my intention to answer a question. Just pointing out the mootness of the question since we start from the premise that we have not met God.

Many people claim they have met God, but that is beside the point. I have heard many people say that they love God or that they hate God. I just want to know exactly how they do that.

It is a simple enough question for people who make these claims I would think, don't you?

JB

Hi there I'm back for a minute.

Abra - many thanks for your overview of Free Methodists. You have hit on area of concern. You see some Christians 'seem' to mingle the old and new Testaments and that is confusing. So now we know that Free Methodists basically only read the old as history, it is no longer a description of sacred beliefs.

Kat brought up the religious vs spiritual, but how does one consider themselves spiritual and Christian? That's just a bit confusing.

Then there are those who have LEARNED via a particular denomination. It seems that once a person learns a denomination they assume all other Christians are the same, but they are not. So some believe in war, some do not. Some believe in baptizing and in all manner of "rituals" while some do not. Some believe certain things are a sin and some believe they are not. Some believe everyone will be saved some believe only a few chosen will be. And the list goes on and on.

The point is that Christian is the tree and denominations seem to be the branches and people are the leaves. No one person believes exactly as another does.

The problem, in that case, lies with the roots of the tree. The roots that define what the tree is 'Christian', must be the Bible, for it is the text from which every Christian learns. Now either every Christian can not understand that in which their beliefs lay, or the book is not explicit enough to be read and understood the same by everyone.

The fact that some believe the Holy Spirit is required in order to interpret the Bible correctly are in error. For there are many millions who will tell you they DO interpret with the Holy Spirit.

So in the end if you choose to indicate that you are a leaf that clings to the tree of Christianity, then you will be seen like all the other leaves.

Try calling yourself something else, if you don't like being one of the leaves.

Oh I forgot, this was very intersting too. But some people believe that God is in control AT THEIR DEMAND. AS if God would stand by and watch the senseless suffering of a child without their prayers.

I have to agee the logic is faulty. If God has control and fails to make a person healthy why is that ok? But when God is prayed to "by the right people" he is moved to doing something, why is that ok?

Of course there are those time when prayer seems not to work at all, but then, of course, that is becasue it was not Gods Will.

Faulty logic all over the place. No wonder the roots of this tree that makes the leaves call Christians, can not get it right.

Redy.... your only INTENT behind asking that Christianity be explained to you....was so you could point a finger at imperfect christians .

Not good Ready........
cause you see...when you point a finger, Redy.....
three fingers are always pointing right back at you.

Love you Redy...but may I suggest... that you take your eyes off Imperfect man now..and try now putting them on Perfect God, instead.

God is waiting , Redy........and Loves You Vey Much.
So Do I.

Absolutely, and when confronted with that they refuse to acknowledge it. But the irony come when Christians are referred to as a group, then they all start shouting, "We are aren't all the same!"

So there's a huge inconsistency with how the followers behave. However, as far as I'm concerned that's a totally moot point because there are much greater inconsistencies in the biblical doctrine itself. The very doctrine is not only ambiguous, but it blatantly contradicts itself.

For example, and unchanging God decide at one point to drown out the entire population of the earth save for one small family. But then later on it is proclaimed that God loves the world so much that he sends his only begotten Son as a sacrificial lamb to save it. That's a huge inconsistently in the behavior of a supposedly unchanging God.



This is a very good point Di. The vast majority of Christians are actually "Designer Christians" (that's my own term by the way, but this group is recognized. The Group I'm talking about are those Christians, who call themselves Christians because they believe in Christ and believe they are being 'saved'. But they aren't really concerned with the rest of the dogma. Most of them are not affiliated with denominations or even churches! Maybe a better term for them would be "Renegade Christians" but they retain the label of "Christian".

I call them "Designer Christians" because they're truly designing their own version of the religion in the technical details. Most of them basically just want to focus on the love that Jesus taught and sweep the rest of the biblical doctrine under the carpet. They aren't the slightest bit interested in whether the doctrine makes sense on not. They've got Jesus and that's all they need.

In fact, they are so focused on Jesus that they have all but forgotten about the God of Abraham! In fact, most of them will claim that Jesus is the God of Abraham. But that doesn't fly logistically. But they don't care about logic! All they care about it that they have been "saved"! And they are preaching LOVE now and that's got to be a good thing right?

Well, like you say, Maybe they should think about calling themselves something other than Christians. And the reason being that when they go by that label they are actually supporting the dogmatic religion whether they realize it or not. They think they are standing up for "Christ" but what they are actually doing it standing up for the dogma they don't even truly want to hear about in detail.

I read one time that Christianity today is growing at the same rate as they population growth. That's not good news for Christians. That basically means that it's not growing at all. That means that it's merely holding steady as the population grows. Actually Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today but I think that's only because of the fact that Bush invaded Iraq. A lot of people in that part of the world who were Christians, are converting back over to Islam now.

The other interesting thing is that many Christians are abandoning the churches and becoming "Renegade Christians" or "Designer Christians". They are giving up on the dogmatic details and just wanting to worship Jesus and be 'saved'. However, statistically this doesn't show up because all of those people are still claiming to be "Christians". They've abandoned the church, but not the label.

I clung to the label of "Christian" for a long time. Even after I was convinced that Jesus couldn't possibly have paid for my sins via his death. But there came a time when I finally had no choice but to abandon the label altogether and even ask myself why I was bothering to cling to is. I never 'abandoned' Jesus even to this day. Unlike a lot of Christians who would reject Jesus as a liar and a fraud if they discovered that he was just a man, I accept Jesus as a mortal man with open arms. Not many Christians would be willing to do that.

I don't need anything from Jesus to be his friend. He owes me nothing.

By the way, the other religion that is on the rise is Wicca. This could be due to the Harry Potter Series as well as other fantasy movies like The Golden Compass which also portrays witches as being the "Good Guys" or "Good Gals" in this case. It was the prophecies of the witches that foretold of the little girl who would save the universe from the dogmatic theocracy of the Magisterium .

Maybe Christians need to start thinking seriously about selling Christianity as a fantasy story if they want to compete in the 21st century.

On the contrary, the Church of Jesus Christ is people and not institutions.

The Holy Spirit is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ and MUST be present and leading the Church or it is not the Church. The Church must also be Spirit filled souls. Period. or the witness is of men and not God.

It is that simple.

All else is a lie.

Is that plain enough?

It should be.

That's what they all say....

Saying and being are two different things.


what do you say?
Have you been in a congregation with the Holy Spirit in the midst?

If you had, you would have known it.

And most certainly wouldn't be so bold to dismiss the Holy Spirit in such lighthearted fashion.

The voices you hear would have shown you to the door before you even crossed the threshold.

They cannot stand the Holy Spirit. Nor will they tolerate giving you up to the Holy Spirit without deceiving you.

They know all too well that they are nothing.

I think everyone is a different kind of christian, or whatever else they believe because they are on their own path in that religion.

That was a joke. geeeeze. The voices I hear are my own.

I would not go near one of those places simply because I think those people are under the spell of hypnosis ~~ or else possessed by spirits, ~~but not by the holy spirit of God.

And they have to go back all the time to get revived anew or else they might come to their senses.

That's what I think.

JB

Well Abra, see talking it out really does shed light on the subject. I think you have made some fine points. I think that may well be the difference in the largest group of people who don't want to be allied with other Christians.

They, the Designer Christians, just want to take a simple message of peace and love from Jesus, say they believe, get saved and find peace in the process. They don't hold to the dogma and may, in fact, be more spiritual than religious.

oK - this I can see as a distinction and a reason not to be grouped with other Christians.

Maybe those who feel that way will remember your description and who knows, maybe next time they will say

"hey, keep Designer Christians out of that whole you have grouped together!"

Thanks for the input everyone!