[Crantag]

Christianity is evil, as well as being the epitome of bigoted. It is a clannish superstitious order based on the cult warship of the supernatural. It is a tyrannical order based on systemic oppression. It is a devious system of thought manipulation of the downtrodden and gullible. It is one of the biggest inhibitors to positive progress in areas where progress is objectively desperately needed afflicting humanity.

[Victoribus Spolia]

obviously I can not prove this false, but if humans can surpass such black and white reasoning, it is difficult to picture a God that could not.

I suppose I do not understand this statement.

The question really is; whether or not Divine knowledge is the ultimate standard for all other thinking. If so, and such is black and white (as you say), then any deviation we concoct would be by definition, a falsity and not a surpassing (as you have characterized).

The theological orthodox conception of this is pretty plain. God makes the rules, and all systems of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, etc., are subject to the Divine Word. Thus, if He says that only those united to Christ by faith may enter into final redemption, then it does not really matter what we may like to think on the matter. That is simply the way it is.

The faithful Christian does not reverse-engineer his conception of God based on his opinions or learning, rather, he subjects his opinions and learning to the Divine authority. If a man's thinking on any topic is contrary to the Scriptural notion, then the man's notion must be corrected. Always and period.

The only lee-way is flexibility in interpretation of certain texts, which can be justified via an understanding of context or greater fluidity in some of the ancient languages; however, this too often is abused in contemporary thinkers to "Get-out-of" submitting to a difficult teaching.

But let there be no confusion on the matter, Christian doctrine is not formulated to be the subject of a buffet-style pick-and-choose as you wish salad bar. Christian doctrine claims to be absolute in authority, universal in authoritative-scope, exclusive of other views, intolerant to heresy, and demanding of obedience. It has no interest in moderating its tone, diluting its message, becoming "up-to-date," appealing to scientific or post-modern sensibilities, or embracing new fads. It represents eternal obligation par excellence.

[Pants-of-dog]

God did not write the Bible. Humans did.

The faithful Christian apparently has his or her conception of God reverse engineered based on the opinions and learning of Bronze age desert nomads.

It seems odd to imagine a perfect, eternal, infinite being responsible for all creation who oh so super coincidentally just happens to have the same desires as a conservative man from an era when agriculture was the hot new thing.

[One Degree]

@Victoribus Spolia
I am out of my depth in any religious argument, so please consider my post questions rather than arguments.
If we are made in God’s image and I think as deep as I can, God would not require me to worship him. As far as I can tell, it is contradictory to what he made me. How do you explain this or do you just find my reasoning faulty? My view would be God is everywhere and we should worship everything about our environment and neighbors. I don’t believe it means worshipping a personification.

[Albert]

@Victoribus Spolia
I am out of my depth in any religious argument, so please consider my post questions rather than arguments.
If we are made in God’s image and I think as deep as I can, God would not require me to worship him. As far as I can tell, it is contradictory to what he made me. How do you explain this or do you just find my reasoning faulty? My view would be God is everywhere and we should worship everything about our environment and neighbors. I don’t believe it means worshipping a personification.

As far as I understand believing is enough to worship.

[B0ycey]

God did not write the Bible. Humans did.

This statement needs repeating.

Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant. To accept the bible is to accept the word of man and not God. So who can be sure what God really wants or not? It's not like churches are natural after all.

Nonetheless, Jesus's messages of Charity and forgiveness seem to be ignored by visually every single American right-wing PoFo poster. If they truly accepted the bible as a fact, they are as good as sinners and are destined for a lifetime of pitchforks up their asses.

[One Degree]

This statement need a repeating.

Whether there is a god or not is irrelevant. To accept the bible is to accept the words of man and not god. So who can be sure what god really wants or not? It's not like churches are natural.

Nonetheless, Jesus's messages of Charity and forgiveness seem to be ignored by visually every single American right-wing PoFo poster. If they truly accepted the bible as a fact, they are as good as sinners and are destined for a lifetime of pitchforks up their asses.

LMAO And your unwillingness to have forgiveness for right wingers means what for your afterlife?

[B0ycey]

LMAO And your unwillingness to have forgiveness for right wingers means what for your afterlife?

I am agnostic One Degree. And I do not accept the Bible - or any other form of religious text as evidence, nor Do I believe it should be used as a guide to how you should live your life. So this statement means nothing to me.

I do not need to forgive because I do not accept the Bible. Christians who believe in the word of Christ do. And they don't. So they are fucked in the after life the same as every other sinner out there if the bible was indeed fact.

[One Degree]

@B0ycey Thanks for the explanation. I am bad about not associating poster’s past comments with their current ones. I believe this allows me to be more objective of their current comment, but it also means I say foolish things due to lack of context.

[Heisenberg]

It's worth pointing out that the Bible is not a single book - it is more like a library. Unlike the Qur'an, which claims to be the absolute, final and literal word of God, the Bible contains history, poetry, law, prophecy and allegory. The relatively recent (and primarily American-driven) trend towards Biblical literalism is out of step with the majority of Christian history.

[Victoribus Spolia]

If we are made in God’s image and I think as deep as I can, God would not require me to worship him

According to the Scriptures, the doctrine of the Imago Dei is based primarily upon true righteousness and holiness (Ephesian 4:24), not all capacity. When Scripture speaks of being made in the image of God, it is not in an absolute sense, obviously, if that were the case we could self-generate, create worlds, etc.

Likewise, the fall has corrupted human nature bringing death, disease, noetic corruption (intellectual rebellion), original sin, actual-indwelling sin, etc. The fall and its corruption is total.

My view would be God is everywhere and we should worship everything about our environment and neighbors. I don’t believe it means worshipping a personification.

God has revealed Himself in nature (general revelation); wherein His attributes and power are clearly perceived, we often ascribe causation and the powers of the world to natural objects (bacteria, heat, the stars, gravitation), etc., in an albeit less superstitious way than our pagan ancestors when they attributed the change of seasons to fairies, etc.,

Naturalism is nothing more than non-anthropomorphic paganism, and pantheism is spiritualized naturalism.

God's nature as revealed in Scripture, especially much of the anthropomorphic language of the Old Testament, is based on the condescension of God in human language. When we say that God "sees" all things, obviously this seeing is not the same as the manner in which a biological lifeform sees via the means of eyes.

In the end though, God's special revelation in Scripture calls man back to a relationship with Him through the means of salvation brought through the church via the work of Jesus Christ. Outside of these means, there is no possible way of salvation. This is Christian orthodoxy. I understand you may have your opinion on religion, but that is not how it works in Christianity. You do not choose, you are chosen, you do not save yourself, you are saved from without, you cannot please God by your own works, God must produce the fruits in you by you submitting to His grace offered via certain means.

Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant. To accept the bible is to accept the word of man and not God. So who can be sure what God really wants or not? It's not like churches are natural after all.

Christians believe in the Scriptures by faith and they claim to be the revelation of God. That such was written by men is quite irrelevant if their claims are true and if they were in fact led by the Holy Spirit to write what they did.

"For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (1 Peter 1:21)

[B0ycey]

If I spoke to you from a burning Bush VS and told you information to chisel out on a stone tablet after you climbed down a mountain, how accurate do you believe you will be?

Not that any of that matters btw. How charitable or coherent do you believe you Anarcho-Capitalism is to Jesus's message? Do you believe Jesus was pro or anti Rome?

[Victoribus Spolia]

If I spoke to you from a burning Bush VS and told you information to chisel out on a stone tablet after you climbed down a mountain, how accurate do you believe you will be?

Once again, God in His sovereign control of events, guaranteed the result He wanted there to be, He led his prophets and apostles by the Holy Spirit and Divine initiative (see the text I quoted in my last post). Moses in that case was used and driven by God to do what he did in regards to making manifest the revealed Will of God.

Thus, to answer your question, I would be as accurate as God would make me to be.

[B0ycey]

Once again, God in His sovereign control of events, guaranteed the result He wanted there to be, He led his prophets and apostles by the Holy Spirit and Divine initiative (see the text I quoted in my last post). Moses in that case was used and driven by God to do what he did in regards to making manifest the revealed Will of God.

Thus, to answer your question, I would be as accurate as God would make me to be.

Let me help you out VS. Jesus is the holy trinity. His word is that of God. His message was love thy neighbour, not kill and steal off thy neighbour. Yet you consider yourself safe from damnation? I think the opposite.

[Albert]

I am agnostic One Degree. And I do not accept the Bible - or any other form of religious text as evidence, nor Do I believe it should be used as a guide to how you should live your life. So this statement means nothing to me.

I do not need to forgive because I do not accept the Bible. Christians who believe in the word of Christ do. And they don't. So they are fucked in the after life the same as every other sinner out there if the bible was indeed fact.

Not a Christian and thinks Bible is a joke ...... still wants forgiveness from Christians because Bible teaches it.

[Victoribus Spolia]

How charitable or coherent do you believe you Anarcho-Capitalism is to Jesus's message? Do you believe Jesus was pro or anti Rome?

These are two separate questions.

please keep this in mind about me, I am a radical zealot in regards to Christianity. I do not subscribe to any belief unless I believe it is Biblically based, if I am convinced that such is unbiblical, I will change my position.

I believe that theonomic Patriarchy is the biblical position and that there are degrees of acceptable governance in according to that principle, AnCap patri-familias is the most optimal, followed by monarchy, and then by imperialism so long as these are theocratic in their essence, that is, in enforcing biblical law. Under AnCap principles, this would mean that governance over one's land was incumbant upon the head of that land, He is obligated to bring his lands and those inhabitants under Him into conformity to the Christian religion. This same principle applies to kings and emperors.

I believe that the goal of Christians in the first centuries of the church was to bring Imperial Rome into conformity to Christianity after the manner of the Kings Josiah and Hezekiah.

However, John's Apocalypse envisions the evils of Roman abuse and persecution and decadence as wicked and anti-Christian and to be revived in the actual office of Anti-Christ (which I believe is the Papacy).

[Albert]

There are a lot of people like BOycey I have met. That dislike Christianity from this sort of twisted judgment that conflates forgiveness with inaction for some reason. Ironically like fundamentalist they take this teaching to literal sense. Did Jesus act to stop money lenders in his temple or did he sit there not act against evil? Forgiveness does not mean inaction against evil.

[Victoribus Spolia]

Let me help you out VS. Jesus is the holy trinity. His word is that of God. His message was love thy neighbour, not kill and steal off thy neighbour. Yet you consider yourself safe from damnation? I think the opposite.

Nice.

Believe it or not, I believe in the command to love thy neighbor as thyself which is a summary of the second table of the Law in the ten commandments. Thus, comprehended in that law is not breaking God's moral commands regarding social conduct. Aiding the poor is also essential to this, which is why 10% of my income has been voluntarily given to church-operated charities my entire adult life as a tithe, beyond any additional offering I ordinarily give, neither of which I claim on my taxes as a loss.

Good King Wenceslas happens to be my hero, but he was still a king. That sort of summarizes my thought on that.

American Christians happen to be the most voluntarily charitable people in the world, just so you know.

Is this because of their evangelical doctrine or in spite of it?

We don't need to be coerced by government to give to the poor via progressive taxes or forced redistribution, we give it freely and voluntarily. What is more pleasing to God? The one who was forced to pay by a government money to the poor or one who sacrified of it freely? That is why I am an Ancap and still believe that voluntary communalism and collective ownership is permissible and often admirable.

[B0ycey]

No amount of twisting logic will ever conceal the truth VS. Jesus was a saint. He was anti feudal. He was against everything you stand for. Trying to convince yourself that you are just won't convince me or anyone who knows anything about Christianity.

Nonetheless I am here to help. Support Odin, the true God. And this awaits the victor of the spoils...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla

[B0ycey]

There are a lot of people like BOycey I have met. That dislike Christianity from this sort of twisted judgment that conflates forgiveness with inaction for some reason. Ironically like fundamentalist they take this teaching to literal sense. Did Jesus act to stop money lenders in his temple or did he sit there not act against evil? Forgiveness does not mean inaction against evil.

Albert, you either adhere to the bible or you don't. If you are truly Christian adhere the Gods message and stop bitching that I don't. After all, you are meant to love me.