What ever happened to RESPECT

[ShakaZulu]

I believe the earth is flat and I can back it up.....................

 

[BIGSAGE136]

Here we also have a paradox. It is not disrespectful to say that someone is absolutely wrong about something. People have the right to believe the moon is made of green cheese if they want, they can even believe we came from a rock due to an explosion 20 billion years ago. Saying that is foolishness is not disrespectful, anymore than someone else denying the Trinity or that Jesus is God in the flesh is disrespectful, (to me at least, it certainly is to God) It is somehow often construed as disrespectful to tell a person, look, you are wrong and your opinion is incorrect, although you may hold to it if you want to.

I don't think its a paradox at all. And I know you know that.
Before Christ allowed the new word to be TAUGHT to the dogs he wanted a stage set. Your actions are reminding me of the apostles reaction to the leash that restricted their spreading the good news until the right time.

Knowledge brings peace. I sense a ton of discomfort, and an urge to prove a point. Why? :06:

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For those of us who are fully convinced that judgment day is coming, and that the majority are either ignorant of the fact, do not believe it, or simply do not care, we have no choice but to keep yelling "fire".

But you do have a choice ...

Continuing to yell implies that God's gift of free will to you somehow supercedes His gift of free will to others.

I think He endowed us all with the ability to make choices for a reason ... and that once warned, it is neither your duty nor your right to keep yelling.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Potapko]

:06:

But you do have a choice ...

Continuing to yell implies that God's gift of free will to you somehow supercedes His gift of free will to others.

I think He endowed us all with the ability to make choices for a reason ... and that once warned, it is neither your duty nor your right to keep yelling.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I obviously disagree. Please, if you come by my house in the middle of the night and it is on fire, don't stop yelling, even if I tell you to go away.

SAGE Quote
I don't think its a paradox at all. And I know you know that.
Before Christ allowed the new word to be TAUGHT to the dogs he wanted a stage set. Your actions are reminding me of the apostles reaction to the leash that resticted their spreading the good news until the right time.

Knowledge brings peace. I sense a ton of discomfort, and an urge to prove a point. Why?
__________________
SAGE

Perhaps you sense my urgency in telling a lost and dying world that without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ they will spend eternity in a lake of fire. That people are calmly going through their day, posting on this board perhaps, diving and doing whatever they choose to do, ignorant of the judgment that is to come. Paul wrote that he was clean from the blood of all men because he had preached the truth to them. if I fail to call the alarm, the blood of those I should have told is on my hands. When they look up from the burning pit and ask me, "why didn't you tell me?" Perhaps this is why you sense a little urgency in my writing.
Jesus put it this way:
Mark 9:42-48
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. [43] And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: [44] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. [45] And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: [46] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. [47] And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: [48] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Perhaps you sense my frustration with a world gone crazy due to the teachings of a fairy tale for adults called evolution. A teaching that is responsible for millions being turned from the faith and Crazed men who believed it using it to justify the murder of 6 million jews. A teaching that led two young men in Colorado to murder a number of their classmates, a teaching that was used to justify the slaughter of thousands of Aborigines for their skulls thinking them to be a missing link.

A teaching used to justify the murder of 50,000,000 babies since 1973.
Sorry, I will not give up, shut up, let up, until people look up and see there is a Holy God they need to answer to.

Other than that, I have no reason to be disturbed, but thanks for asking.
Jeff

 

[BIGSAGE136]

:06: Perhaps you sense my frustration with a world gone crazy due to the teachings of a fairy tale for adults called evolution. A teaching that is responsible for millions being turned from the faith and Crazed men who believed it using it to justify the murder of 6 million jews. A teaching that led two young men in Colorado to murder a number of their classmates, a teaching that was used to justify the slaughter of thousands of Aborigines for their skulls thinking them to be a missing link.

A teaching used to justify the murder of 50,000,000 babies since 1973.
Sorry, I will not give up, shut up, let up, until people look up and see there is a Holy God they need to answer to.

Other than that, I have no reason to be disturbed, but
thanks for asking.
Jeff

I'm surprised that you can't see that your own religion is the evolution of another. Jesus never called himself a Christian.

You are on the path though. It'll come to you.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

please read some history.

about the first thing societies did when they got to farming
and ended up with large populations was to set down
LAWS so that they could function smoothly.

these laws included murder, robbery, rape (understood
then as marrying a woman against her father's wishes)
and so on.

these LAWS had two basic effects:

1. it allowed large numbers of strangers to live together
by common, well-known rules; and

2. it provided for a dispute resolution system without
resort to private vendettas.

without these two, large societies simply can't exist.
and yes, these are MAN'S laws. the Ten Commandments is
not even close to being the first set of such laws.
and, by the way, to give these laws credence, a usual
practice was to say "the GODS have told us to do blah
blah blah." religion was just a way to give validity to
the man-made laws.

now, you are saying that everybody has a version of their
truth. well... a quick lingusitic lesson:

there are two levels of meaning: denotative meaning
and connotative meaning.

at the denotative leve, we can prove things. for example,
i can PROVE that a coin falls to the floor at a certain
constant speed. i can measure that speed and PROVE
that i am right.

however, at the denotative level, i don't really know WHY it
does that. i call it "gravity" and the "gravitational constant"
but i can't realy PROVE that i am right as to HOW OR WHY
gravity works.

thus, at the denotative, i can PROVE that the
gettaway car was GREEN, driven by someone who looked
JUST LIKE YOU, and that when the cops pulled you over,
you had TEN BILLION DOLLARS in the trunk of your green car.
hence, i can prove you ROBBED THE BANK.

now, at the connotative level, things get really tricky.
what is love? what does it mean to be a good person?
is there life after death?

simply put, you can't really prove these things. thus,
at the connotative level, there is no "truth" other than that which you ultimately choose to believe.

see the difference?

Spare me the linguistic lesson. It's soooo typical that when you cannot win a debate the assumption is that the 'other guy' is an ignorant buffoon. When that fails you simply quit ... like you did yesterday.

I have read history. I could start from "the beginning" but of course you will claim that is only my truth. Never-the-less I will press on.

Man has ALWAYS been a "farmer". Adam and Eve tended a garden and Cain was a farmer. So, thus endeth one of your arguments.

As for The 10 Commandments, I never claimed it predated every other codified rules of behavior. Don't claim I said something I did not say, counselor.

All we see is quite clearly described in the Bible. It is an historic (and historical) document. It is not a complete story but what it contains has never been proven incorrect, despite the best attempts.

For example ...

Historically, we all spoke the same language and had similar rules, etc. until the Tower of Babbel incident. Linguists ever search for 'the mother tongue' they say underlies all languages but many would poo-poo the reality of the Biblical account.

Evolutionary scientists ever search for the origin of life and the reason for mass extinction but the Bible is quite clear on both of those subjects as well.

The reason for the middle east problem is also a Biblical story but that too is dismissed as only a fairy tale made up by men who were too ignorant to understand the world.

Anyway, gotta go again. It's been fun.

G_M

 

[BIGSAGE136]

I bow out. I dont want to see a very enlightening discussion reduced to all of our fears.

Peace & Blessings

 

[The Chairman]

First off... Jesus never got caught up in "politics". Those who proclaim to emulate him should emulate that as well. He focused on love.

You say that "Love without truth is heresy" I must ask what scripture that comes from. God is Love and God is also truth. Love is the personification of truth in our lives. There is no caveat.

Philipians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. True disciples have no "rights". If there is a habit or desire that drives non-believers away, he simply and happily changes it. This includes the desire to always "be right". Thus was Paul "all things to all men". This does not mean throwing away your core or fundamental beliefs. It does mean that if a room is about to be engulfed in fire, you use the best possible way to convey that message. Merely shouting fire when none can see it only confuses and causes resentment and produces the exact opposite response. God would rather you reason gently and help others to gradually understand the truth, than to blindly run around and imitate Chicken Little.

Jesus was careful to not teach too much too early. Yet most who claim to be evangelistic today spend very little time explaining, and quite a bit of time demanding. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees of old, "The Moral Majority" have made a travesty of God's word and have helped Satan to blind an entire generation. The "teachers of the law" of the time could not accept him because they were looking for a political messiah. That was never Jesus' mission. I suggest that politics is not the mission of his disciples today. It is still to love others from the heart, so that they might see God and be saved.

Anything else is a move away from "fundamentalism" and towards extremeism. You must die to self, and your love of "being right" in order to reach those who need Jesus most.

 

[medic_diver45]

Actually, He claimed to be the Son of God. Despite best efforts, the many attempts to disprove any of the Bible have failed, so reason indicates that all of it is factual.

"Mainstream" science have tried for years to disprove the existence of Bigfoot which has far more physical evidence to back it up than the proof the Jesus was the son of God (which I believe he was, but I am trying to prove a point so bear with me), so does that imply that if we can't prove something that someone claims (no matter how outlandish (and I believe Bigfoot exists too)) that it is true just because they say it, or just does it true when it becomes published in a book?

 

[Potapko]

I'm surprised that you can't see that your own religion is the evolution of another. Jesus never called himself a Christian.

This statement is an expression of a lack of Bible knowledge as well as missing the pertinent definition of the word evolution. Of course Jesus never called Himself a christian, He is the CHRIST!