Peace to you.
Formatting is a bit off in your post, so I am just going to take a few points that need commenting and clarification.
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Replying to post 42 by Divine Insight]
So then the question becomes, "Who was the idiot designer who designed the Israelis with hard hearts?
No, the question does not become that. That question was responded to here:
(and people can harden their hearts, even if they were not hard from birth; simply because they do not want to hear the truth... "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts"... Hebrews 3:15; Hebrews 4:7; Psalm 95;7,8)
A person can HARDEN their heart.
Abraham is from before Israel, and his heart was not hard. He had no need of a written law; the law was written upon his heart; and he would have taught that law to his sons Isaac and Ishmael.
I am going to cut out every statement that has to do with the erroneous idea that God designed us with hard hearts.
And that's just a silly parable designed to try to convincing people to think that they are better than those nasty Pharisees.
That is the meaning you get from a parable that rebukes a man for thinking he is not a sinner, and for thinking that he is better than all those other people who are sinners?
But now all you are doing is using behaviors in a secular world to try to justify an unwarranted theological paradigm that itself makes no sense.
What?
We live in the same world, DI. We accept different things
about that world, but we live in the same world.
Are you suggesting that I cannot look at the world and see things in it that support the teachings of Christ?
Clearly people are not perfect, and everyone doesn't always act out of love (especially based on your definition or what you consider love to mean).
I do not recall giving a definition of love. Unless you are referring to me listing some acts that come from love (and some that do not)? Did you disagree with those?
That's the other thing too. Jesus may have said that love is the greatest of all commandments, but no where did he say, "See Tam for the correct definition of love".
Nor did I ever claim that.
So when Jesus says that the greatest law is love, it's a meaningless proclamation until he sits down and tells us precisely what he means when he uses that term.
You think He never showed us what love is? He showed us: He gave His life for us (said there is no greater love than one who lays down their life for their friends), He also pleads on behalf of His Bride, forgives, teaches, speaks truth, serves, feeds; rebukes and corrects; gives to those in need; shows mercy, etc.
And according to you, not wanting to harm others is the definition of love.
I never said that. Not wanting to harm others should simply be the default position. Just because you do not want to harm others does not mean that you love them. You could also simply be indifferent to them.
People who don't give beggars on the street money may actually be acting from what they consider to be love. After all, what if the homeless person is an addict? Giving them money will only support their drug or alcohol addition. Besides, the person you see passing by a homeless person on the street may have already given large sums of money to homeless shelters and soup kitchens. The homeless person should be seeking out those resources instead of begging for money on the street. In fact, one could argue that the street beggars are far more likely to be seeking drug or alcohol money. Because if what they really wanted was food and shelter they would be seeking out those services instead of begging on the street for money.
So don't be so quick to judge people who walk past drug addicts on the street without funding their addictions.
It seems that the 'argument' you are presenting may be judging the homeless person.
Look I am not going to speak as to your uncles (or the rest of your family). I used to think I was a pretty good person too. But my Lord speaks only the truth and He has shown me things about me that I did not see (and/or did not want to see). Things from childhood and things from adulthood, and things I still have to work on. I thank my God for His Son, and for His mercy and for His forgiveness.... tam
Is there any possibility that all that has truly happened is that in reading (or being taught) the Biblical stories about this character named Jesus you came to realize that you could improve on your current views and behaviors?... DI
No, that is not at all what I am speaking about about. I am speaking about things I had forgotten, things I had not looked too closely at, perhaps things I chose to forget... things that I was shown/reminded about.
Taking a look at current behaviors and comparing them to things that I am reading is something else entirely.
It not my intent to brag about being a "good person" either. None the less when I read the parables of Jesus I don't learn much of anything I didn't already know. I'm not saying that I have always behaved in the best manner possible. I'll openly confess to the world that I have done things that I even knew at the time where not good to do. And I even felt remorse afterward. I had let myself down. Never mind Jesus. In fact, I couldn't care less if I let Jesus down. Letting myself down is far worse.
And yes I've done many things when I was young that today I can't even believe I had done. Nothing criminal, just socially ignorant. Extremely impolite, unloving, uncaring, etc. Sure. That's life. None one is perfect.
Well, there you go! Perhaps you just do not like the word 'sin' instead of "error or wrongdoing", but error and wrongdoing is sin. So I can see its existence simply by observing both myself and the world.
Well, think of how hypocritical it is for Paul to say this, when he had already proclaiming that all men are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. And so now he's going to claim that there exist people who naturally do the things requires by God's law?
This is not a contradiction; not unless you think Paul is suggesting that these people are PERFECT and NEVER do wrong.
So? Just because you know of no person who has perfect flesh and does not die doesn't mean diddly squat. Why would you expect a biological person to never die? Just because some ancient religious folklore claims that if a person is without sin they would never die?
If that biological person was perfect (error-free) what would they die from? What would cause them to die or to get sick or to age or for their systems to begin to shut down or organs to fail, etc?
If a designer God created Adam and Eve to be perfect, then there is no way that they could be anything else. So if Adam and Eve were anything less than perfect, it can only be because God designed them to be imperfect from the get go.
Not if a person is free; meaning they are free to reject what is good and embrace instead what is bad; not if the person is able to corrupt themselves by what they DO.
Now you are talking about a body of flesh as though it has a mind of its own... DI
Figuratively speaking, but it certainly has desires and needs, and it does not care about others. We - the person that we are inside - must overcome the needs of the flesh to, say, go without eating so that someone else can have a meal instead. (assuming there is such a shortage of food)... tam
And even atheists are known to do this. There is no need to bring any religion into the mix to try to explain this. This is precisely the way it would be in a secular world as well. Of course we need food, air, and water to live. This is part of what we are.
Why are you trying to separate the 'religious' (or faithful) from the 'secular' when we are talking about the flesh? Or the person of faith from the person without faith? We all have the same flesh. If even atheists are known to do this (why would I have used the analogy otherwise?)... then we should all be able to understand my point, right?
In fact, all you are really doing here is using religion to "demonize" our physical body. Like as if the needs of the "flesh" are somehow "evil". This is actually a bad thing about these kinds of religions because they aren't dealing with reality.
Any religion that makes is think that our physical body is somehow an undesirable vessel that we need to fight against is already a very negative paradigm.
But there ARE times that we DO have to fight against the flesh in order to be able to act out of love or compassion or selflessness toward another person. Do you disagree with that?
The flesh will protest this (hunger pains, weakness, causing us to be irritable and perhaps also to sin; by NOT giving to someone else in need, due to our own needs).
The flesh is at enmity with the spirit.... tam
But the spirit has never been shown to exist. The flesh has been shown to exist.... DI
Does it matter to the point I am making? Do you not understand the point?
Not only this, but again, none of this differentiates between a spiritual and physical reality. All of these things would still be true in a perfectly secular reality.
Yes, so it can be observed regardless of what one believes about reality. This is the question that you asked me is it not? Do I believe in this stuff (about sin) just because a "religion" teaches it... and I said that I can OBSERVE it in the world.
Because secular law has nothing to do with this religion.
If you can understand something with secular law, then you should be able to see the same with regard to
any law. Please note that I also included rules of someone's house in my analogy. I might break those rules in ignorance, but I would still apologize for having done so. I would not just assume I was owed forgiveness (and even if I was, I would still apologize for having caused offense; I would feel bad for having caused offense even if in ignorance).
Why bother? Why should I take anything this religion claims about how humans might be judged by this God seriously?
That is your business, DI, not mine. But you are making claims about what standards people will be judged by; I am simply discussing that with you.
In fact, all of this began with me disagreeing with your statement that an apology undoes any wrong you may have done. An apology does not undo a wrong (an apology is owed, and amends may be owed as well). Forgiveness on the other hand can erase the debt owed by the wrongdoing. So it would be the person doing the forgiving who actually 'undid' the wrong. (Not literally because it still happened, but by forgiving the wrong and erasing any debt owed because of the wrong.)
(I think what you may have meant is that you have done no wrong that you believe warranted more than an apology to make things right between you and the person you wronged.)
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS ALL BACK ON TOPIC! Very Happy
You're welcome : )
What you have just said here requires that we EARN our salvation by the way we treat others.
Therefore our eligibility for heaven has to be entirely up to us, and cannot be a free gift give as "Grace" to undeserving sinners.
But this then leaves Christ hanging on the cross for naught.
We no longer need him as are "sacrificial lamb" to pay for our sins, because we EARN our eternal life based on how well we treat our fellow humans.
I must disagree.
Can you resurrect yourself (and everyone else)? Can you grant yourself eternal life (and everyone else)? Can you ransom yourself from death?
Of course not.
Good or bad, good deeds or bad deeds, loving or unloving... none of us can have paid the ransom (to death), so that we (and the rest of life) receive a resurrection.
**
The judgment that is on top of the resurrection is another matter. Those in Christ are already forgiven; there is no judgment for them; but everyone else enters (or not) on the basis of how they have treated even a least one of Christ's brothers. Not because it is owed to them, but because the mercy of God and His Son have made this provision
for them.
Instead of arguing with atheists and non-believers about their supposed misunderstanding of Christianity, why aren't you focused on arguing with Orthodox Christians over their misunderstanding of Christianity?
This is a good question. I prefer to focus upon those who are seeking Christ and God. But this forum has a tendency to bring a person up against atheists as well, and the atheists on this forum are often critical of God or His Son based upon those false teachings from Christendom. Sometimes also the atheists on this forum provide the biggest platform to be able to share about Christ, for the sake of the reader even if no one else.
For the record, it was not my goal to argue with you about anything; I was just glancing through the thread, had no intention of commenting, but saw that one comment about apology undoing wrongdoing, and so commented.
Peace again to you!
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