Why would you argue that?
Because it is not Biblical.
Is there a coherent description about this in the Bible that you can point us to, showing clearly that you are correct?
The following is about as coherent as it gets:
God's Plan of Salvation
GOD'S PART
1. The great love of God for man (John 3:16)
2. He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, as the Saviour (Luke 19:10)
3. Sent the Holy Spirit as a guide (John 16:13)
4. Gave the Gospel as "the power" unto salvation (Romans 1:16)
5. Provided atonement by the blood of Christ (Romans 5:9)
MAN'S PART
1. Hear the Gospel. (Romans 10:17, John 8:32)
2. Believe the Gospel (Hebrews 11:6, John 20:31)
3. Repent of past sins (Luke 13:3, Acts 17:30)
4. Confess faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 10:10, Matthew 10:32)
5. Be Baptized (Galatians 3:27, Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38)
6. Be faithful unto death (Revelation 2:10)
Here are some more:
Mat 24:13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
Rom 10:13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."
Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
Rom. 19:9-10 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified,
and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
I invite you to look up these verses in a good, rigid, translation and tell me if any of them talk about one's personality. The verses point out beliefs and actions. If it was all about personality why didn't the writers say that?
What does your basket of apples say about how we will experience the next phase? How does the
doctrine of salvation in the Bible differ from my description?
Read it for yourself. Compare what the bible says with what you say. I provided the verses since you seem to be unaware of them.
What you said is not in the Bible. If you can show me in the Bible where it says that after we die we "experience the fruits of our own personality" then it is Biblical. Otherwise, it isn't Biblical and should not be introduced in this thread.
What are you expecting, something word for word?
Words do have meanings. If we are debating Bible literature we should use Bible language. The words you have used (more than once) do not convey the same meanings. The term "the next phase." How am I supposed to know what you mean by that? It's not in the Bible so the best I can do is guess what you mean. "Personality" is another. That word is not used either and does not accurately portray what the bible says. I have to wonder if you've even read the bible, much less studied it.
Are you saying that folk cannot and do not interpret the Bible differently and does not the OP make that observation in the complaint that the God didn't make things obvious or crystal clear about the doctrine of salvation? Isn't that what this thread is about?
But don't you see? You're making it even more confusing. People can and do interpret the bible and it's often invalid interpretations. That's why scholars labor to
translatethe scripture as best they can and in their translations they chose other words than "the next phase" and "personality." As for the OP, I wasn't saying that the bible made unclear statements [/i]in themselves,[/i]but rather that the statements were scattered about and not presented in a unified way. Consequently, there is confusion when people read these and start comparing and trying to figure out how any one statement supports or does not support what the scriptures say in another place. This isn't my opinion. All you need to do is look at how many religions and denominations there are. So that we don't miss seeing the forest for the trees what we have been debating is a microcosm of the bigger picture.
What does the Bible say about dealing with your own Demons?
The concept of demons is from the Bible. That's what I meant.
Yes. It is from a large number of religious literature as well. But how does that answer my question?
Q: What does the Bible say about dealing with your own Demons?
The only thing I will say is to go back to the previous posts and read them carefully, in context. I wasn't saying anything about what the bible says about it. The concept of demons is from the bible. It originated with the bible. It wasn't used in literature until hundreds of years after the canon of scripture was closed.
How do you think that fits in with the doctrine of salvation? Is salvation like being saved from your own demons? Something else?
It doesn't.
If you want to discuss incoherence in humans and why God made us so, I suggest you start a new thread.
So you are not interested in putting the horse before the cart? Of what value [re the doctrine of salvation] is it to make a statement that implies the inability of humans to understand the doctrine coherently - as being a problem - without wanting to also try and reason the possible sources for the problem?
I left the cart and horse thing way back there. Let's move on. You're the one who implied the inability of humans to understand doctrine coherently, not me. The problem with not understanding does not lie with man but with the supposed inspired writers of the bible. That's my whole point, and the point of the Op, in case you forgot.
The Bible came through humans and was not dictated by any being as it was allowed to be presented as stories from hearsay about others claiming to be directly involved with the God.
As a result, we have a smorgasbord of stories which have passed through many different filters of individual beliefs and which sometimes lead to folk feeling it necessary to make threads such as this one, in which questions can be asked and answers might be given.
I don't understand how you obviously could not have understood that the OP was written primarily to
debunk what millions, if not billions, of Christians believe - that the bible was written by God. So, I have to wonder why you responded at all since you already believe that it was not written by God.
I am unconvinced that the answers I am giving are as irrelevant as you are making them out to be, so if you want to discuss this with me more, then ceasing with such hand-waving would be beneficial to that.
I have been on point and concise with everything I wrote, William, to the best of my ability. I resent the accusation of hand-waving.
The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel was for a specific purpose so that mankind could not communicate and build a tower to heaven - as ridiculous as all that is. The point is, that odd little story is a far cry from your claim that the God character made humans incoherent.
Are you arguing that it is not Biblical enough for your tastes? Why argue that something which was once credited as one of the ways in which the God did things re Humans, is now somehow no longer relevant to discussion on the way that the God did things?
I'll say it again: "The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel was for a specific purpose so that mankind could not communicate and build a tower to heaven - as ridiculous as all that is. The point is, that odd little story is a far cry from your claim that the God character made humans incoherent." You were grasping at straws with that one.
Given that the long ago confusion of languages is still an ongoing problem being worked out by Humans, why is that incident not related to explanations and interpretations re OP topic of Biblical concepts/doctrines?
It just isn't! Violating the ten commandments is also still a problem, but does that make it relevant to the OP?
I don't see what trust science is asking you to place in it.
If you jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet you would probably trust science to strap on a parachute before you leaped. Then you would have to trust the science again to pull the rip cord.
You are conflating science with industry. Industry is how science is applied and what you are saying is that you place your trust in industry. That in itself is unspectacular and doesn't cover anything outside of the realm of living and breathing here in this Experiential Reality. What has faith in industry got to do with the Biblical Doctrine of Salvation? [the main topic of the thread.]
Did I say I place my faith in industry? No. I said I place my faith in science. Science. Look up the definitions and you might see that science and industry have two totally different meanings. So don't put words in my mouth.
Specific to the comment, I'm not going to assume that the mind exists in some supernatural realm unless science establishes it to a high degree of certainty.
As far as I'm concerned we're done here. We spend all our time trying (or maybe not trying) to figure out what the other is saying. We're wasting our time.