some of you fanatical bible thumpers provide some of the best material, and most of you can’t HELP yourself but jumping on us heathens.

So, for you fanatical bible thumpers: riddle me this.

I’m kindof paraphrasing from memory and also adlibbing- please forgive me but I think the sentiment is right, and I’m not putting out anything wrong

One of the things I was taught in my time in church is this. “god” is the omnipotent creator. it has control over everything. it created everything, knows everything. it knows every thought any living thing could or will ever have. It knows a humans thoughts and feeling every minute of every day. It also has a plan for the entire existence of mankind, down to the individual. "god’s plan" will always prevail. (this was cut and paste from some scripture I found)

god has control even over sinful actions. He ordains sinful, disobedient actions for his good purposes. So his word always prevails, and we can trust that His prophecies always come to pass. (this was copied too)

God’s omnipotence is this: that he has complete and total control over everything. This includes the smallest details of the natural world.

all you thumpers agree on this?

Free will trumps.

🦫

Nope…. You left out human choice…. an individual’s ability to make decisions ….

God will allow you to make decisions and make choices.

word

God doesn’t micromanage peoples lives, unlike some Pastors and pew riders with pious vanity.

🦫

So we’re more like God’s ant farm or fishbowl?

God created the thread, we do the weaving.

Religion exists in the physical, God in the spiritual, regardless of what religion tells you, God isn't concerned about your physical existence, jus your spiritual.

A Jesus lesson most ignore.

Kent

"Thine are the potter, I am the clay."

Libertarian atheist are 10x more obnoxious than the supposed bible thumpers.

That’s actually one of the better answers I’ve ever seen to the question of “why does God let bad things happen to good people”.
Thanks for posting that.

Indeed…….Very significant answer……

Number one, you’re lying when you say that you “cut & paste” from scripture the attributes of God. No scripture refers to Him as it. You go downhill from there.

Number two, as an Alabama native you are an embarrassment to the state.

That kinda what you were fishing for?

I put the "it" in there. not ALL was cut and paste, but some of the pertinent points were. I'm happy that you were triggered by that.

I don't give a blue PH uk about being from Alabama, by the way, so No.

I didn't get a chance to follow up, from before.

so if you thumpers agree that the plan it has is solid, what is the purpose of "prayer"? mortal humans asking it to change it's "plan" for them?

a congregation of 100 people pray for sister rose to make it through throat surgery and she does, then "god answers prayer".

100 million people pray for peace and war starts and kills 10 million people, "that's gods will"

what a complete crock of total BS, the bible is so full of contradictions. I don't see how any of that crap is believable.

But the earliest followers of Jesus didn’t have the Bible. The Jewish scriptures weren’t combined with the New Testament documents until about 350 years after the birth of Jesus. It took Constantine becoming the emperor and having the wealth and the influence to allow the scribes and the scholars to gather these documents, and put them together in what would eventually be called the Bible.

During the time between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the time that Constantine became the emperor of Rome, Christianity grew and gained influence. And these were the persecution years. Constantine reportedly didn’t embrace Christianity because he was all that interested in becoming a Christian personally. He embraced Christianity to unify the empire. The significance of that is staggering. He had to find something that most people in the empire already had in common, and it wasn’t the Roman gods anymore. And this was due to the significant spread of Christianity in the most difficult years.

Christianity made its greatest strides...when Christians faced tremendous hardship...during the 300 or so years before the Bible ever even existed. Christianity grew from the time of Jesus to the time of Constantine not on the back of “the Bible says.” Before the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament documents were combined and titled “the Bible”, Christianity had already replaced the pantheon of Roman, Barbarian, and most Egyptian gods, and was the state religion for the Roman Empire...before anyone ever held the Bible in their hands.

And it would be close to the invention of the printing press before anyone...unless one was a priest...ever held the Bible in their hands. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century Christians didn’t choose to follow Jesus because of an infallible OT or a non-contradicting NT. They were followers of Jesus because He rose from the dead. For the first 300 years, the focus was centered on an event, not on a book. The issue wasn’t “is the Bible true”...it was “did Jesus rise from the dead”...? And Matthew said He did, and so did Mark, and John, and Peter, and James...and then a fire-breathing Pharisee named Paul, who was was gonna put the whole Jesus movement out of business, becomes a raving fan and dedicated his life to taking the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles all over the Roman world. You’ve got to deal with each one of those men and their testimonies separately.

There’s no explanation for the success of the early church if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead. The success of the church wasn’t the Bible; there was no Bible. The success of the church was totally due to eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Fortunately those who were closest to the event, those who were eyewitnesses of the event, documented it. But they didn’t document what they believed, they documented what they saw.

So if people step away from Christianity because the Bible doesn’t add up, or for any other reason due to the Bible itself...there is another thing to maybe reconsider...the focus really isn’t the Bible. The focus really is, and always has been, Jesus’ resurrection. Christianity didn’t disrupt the Roman Empire because of the Bible; Christianity disrupted the Roman Empire because of a resurrected Savior.

And, there were few Bibles until Guttenberg invented his printing press.

It seems like you may be seeking some truths - that you might appreciate sincere explanations/clarifications - but you are going about it in a somewhat crude, bumptious and combative manner. Many folks who have studied and thought through the topic and who might wish to be helpful, do not emulate such behavior, and may simply choose not to waste time and sincerity in the attempt. I might know one of those. Try again?

Remember the Cross.

Never not funny when some keyboard commando thinks he’s had some original thought that is pretty much the oldest thought since God created beings capable of having it.



Yep.

God’s ultimate answer to all the sin and evil in the world was to come in the flesh and live a sunless life and be crucified for it.

Greater love hath no man than this; that he mockingly enlighten people on an internet site.

I can't paste like I used to, thank you.

Uh, you mean He made us in His image and gave us free will, with a spirit, to do as we wish instead of making us as animals?

"The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, the Lord."

Why would God set a system up that required such a thing in the first place? Seems rather stupid for someone else to have to suffer for another persons sins. Not to mention unfair. And since I wasn't even born at this time no one could have possibly died for a damn thing that I did. And spare me all that horse pucky about original sin. I was raised in a Church of God community. I am well aware of the brainwashed dogma. It makes no sense however to a rational mind.

I am not about to question God.

No one would if he showed up personally. But he never does. Just some HUMAN claiming to bring you the word of God. And there's your weak link in the chain.

He did show up; that’s the beauty of it. Sorry you’ve been embittered by your experience. Sounds like you’ve had your share of experience with original sin yourself.

What’s your alternative?

Keep in mind that without God there can be no good or evil, no Justice or “fairness” as you put it.

Everything just is what it is.

Yet you speak as a man with moral conviction.

From whence comes such conviction? To what objective reality outside yourself is it tied?

Genuine questions.

I was raised in the Church, rejected it, and lived accordingly for years. Started asking myself the questions above and couldn’t find a rational answer just “turtles upon turtles all the way down”.

He gave us humans, collectively, free will when He created us. We messed up, collectively, and chose to sin. We, collectively, still do. And it corrupted us and interferes with our ability to have fellowship with our Creator.

He requires a price to be paid for our collective sin (like it or not). But once that debt is paid, we can be reconciled to our Creator. He wants that. He created us because He wanted fellowship with us.

He made that reconciliation finally and fully possible through Jesus. Sacrifice is required by Him to pay the price for sin (like it or not). His own Son is the ultimate sacrifice that pays that debt, for all of us, and allows us reconciliation and fellowship with our Creator.

Forever.

If you’ve never done anything wrong in your entire adult life, then I can understand you bein’ pissed about it being unfair that you’re held accountable for somebody else’s sin (or that anybody else is held accountable for somebody else’s sin). But chances are that you’re in that ‘collective’ group of sinners with ‘all’ the rest of us.

All of us have been embittered by our experiences to some degree, some certainly more than others.

Good Night Kind folks, I need my beauty sleep.

God rules. Satan wishes to. We serve the purposes of one or the other. I always wished I could just be left out of it, live life, die, rot, the end. Still fine with that. But that is not a choice I have been given. The choice is to serve God, or be His enemy. Does the vessel ask the potter, “Why have you made me thus?” It’s not up to the vessel. I am what He made me. Flawed by my sins, of course, some of which I recognize as inherited behaviors from my predecessors. The fact that He is willing to accept me as I am is so significant, that it would be the height of stupidity to question His method of making me acceptable. He is God, who created all things, including me. One does not argue with the Creator Fear not he who can kill the body, but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God…

strikeu,

Generally, yes.

To me, a "rational mind" seems like a very good thing - useful for sorting out even complex issues and solving difficult problems - and even resolving dilemmas. To me, questions seem to be a way of life - very valuable - and I could not fault anyone for questioning all sorts of things - including factors involving God, sin and salvation.

Limitations on the usefulness and effective results of such questioning and resulting rationality are formed by the fact that these actions are done by humans. Even at the human best there is the unfathomable, the biased, the failures of reasoning. Sometimes humans do all of this very well, but seem never to get it completely correct.

So, if a person's summaries and conclusions are conditioned according to the above, it seems like a closed loop - conclusions and explanations formed with limited knowledge and means. Is there not something beyond the reach of human rationality?

I wonder of those whose reasoning causes them to reject belief in a Creator and Supreme Being in control of all; those who do not experience the power and eternal hope flowing from faith in such a God; those who depend solely on human means to define all of creation and eternity. Is there a separate and distinct basis for the sustenance of their core beliefs and their vision beyond this lifetime? What is that - how is that described and defined?

The above is not based on the tenets or actions of some religious denomination or organization; not prompted by the espoused knowledge/position/predictions/behaviors of any preacher/evangelist/etc.; not directed or bound by some edition of written record. Carping or quibbling about bad experiences, stumbling blocks or dislikes involving human positions is not a suitable answer to the question. What is that alternative basis - how is it described and defined? Just curiously questioning.

For those who see Christianity as a crutch for fools or I also would like to know the alternative for the "rational mind".
For an outdoors forum, I'll submit this:
To look at the oceans, mountains, humans, birds,fish and amazing animals and so on and on and on, and then to say that it all just came together without an intelligent, all powerful creator doesn't make sense to my rational mind.
That would be like walking into a room and seeing the most amazing Lego creation you've ever seen and believing that the Lego box fell off a shelf and just landed that way. I' just can't buy it.