Jesus Christ can set you free from the law of sin and death.
Jesus says in John 10:10, "The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Why must people pray to a god who can obviously see everything, know all minds, and, thus, know all needs? Unless all that god NEEDS is to have his little ego puffed up by people bowing down and praying to him?
Why did a perfect being create an imperfect world?
Why did a loving creator create a world where suffering reigns, specially since he could see it all ahead of time.
Why should I honor a father who killed his own son to atone for his own murder of all mankind?
How come we can't see the fiery angels who are guarding the Garden of Eden? In fact, where is the Garden of Eden? If it needs guarding, then it's still got to be here where we can find it? Or was that story just a lot of malarkey?
Why did Noah get away with incest?
Why do Christians worship the son and not his father? No wonder he keeps hammering the South and the Bible bib with hurricanes, tornados, oil spills and floods.
Why didn't Jesus come back to perfect his kingdom before the death of his apostles as he promised them he would?
Since god knows the future, then the future is predetermined. Thus no man woman or child is guilty since they had to do as god foresaw they would do. If they could do differently and break free from god's foreordaining knowledge, then god would not be all powerful, so he preordained all the evil in the world, and there is no free will. Thus, no sin.
If Jesus is in heaven, sitting on the right hand of his father how can he and the father and the holy ghost be one? Was Jesus making that up?
Just one of a million or so questions I have for believers.
I don't think you understood some of my questions, so I'll clarify.
I asked who created god, but what I mean to say is where did god come from? If the Cosmos didn't exist until god created the Cosmos, what universe did god live in before the Cosmos was created? Does that make god an alien life form? Did god come from a Cosmos where many other gods live in order to create this Cosmos just for himself? Or did the Cosmos exist before god came to it? Or was god a "nowhere man" until he made somewhere for himself to be?
How does a perfect, all knowing, all seeing, all powerful god grow lonely? That's a pretty sad and weak god to feel loneliness.
Jesus said he was going back to heaven to sit at the right hand of god the father, his father. You say that god is both father and son. Then how did Jesus sit on his own right hand? Or does he just put his right down on his throne and sit on it?
You miss another point. If god created a perfect universe how did an imperfect man get into his perfect universe? The imperfect man is an imperfection in the so-called perfect universe. So it wasn't a perfect universe to begin with. Seems that god knew that he was creating an imperfect universe, so all sin is god's fault, not man's doing. Either that, or god doesn't have foreknowledge and, thus, he is not perfect himself.
Plus I got a lot of problems honoring a god who gave the human species a death sentence because they didn't obey him. What was he, some sort of king from the old days who just throws his power around to prove that he can do it? Besides I live in a Republic where the vote counts for a lot. Why does anyone want to live in dictatorship like the Christian, Jewish, Islamic paradises are?
Here's another flaw in the Christian plan. At least the Puritans were predestinarians and modern Christians have lost the way. If god can see the future, then the future must be predestined to happen. Therefore no man may escape god's foresight. If a man truly has a free will, then he can get around (escape) god's foreknowledge of the future. That means god is not as powerful as a man who can do as he pleases and not as god foresees that he will do. Pretty puny god if you ask me.
Now if you will answer these few questions with SOME REAL PROOFs, I'll have some real respect for the religious position, but if you can only quote the authority of an old, out-of-date book and don't reply to the serious logic of my questions, then I won't be convinced.
Well, thanks for trying, Paul. Sorry you couldn't answer my questions.
Do you ever ask probing questions about what you've been taught? I always do. I don’t like being taken advantage of. I can't help noticing that if you can believe in a god with so little evidence as one book, then you could believe in any holy book if you were born in another country. You appear to lean on an outside authority for you beliefs. Thus, if you were born in Jerusalem, you'd do as your rabbi teaches you or if born in Iraq, you'd do as the Koran says. I fear you might learn to believe whatever your nearest cultural authority teaches you to believe. Have you seriously considered that question?
Here's one last thought. I'm sure you don't believe in the god Buddha. That makes you an atheist when it comes to Buddha. For the same reason that you don't believe in Buddha, I don't believe in Jesus as god either. When you understand why you don't believe in Buddha, then you will understand why I don't believe in Jesus’s godliness and for exactly the same reasons. We are exactly the same when it comes to thinking about beliefs.
You ask if I know sin. No, I don't. I don't believe in the concept of sin. That's a religious concept.
However, driven by the normal human fears that all human animals feel, I've made many MISTAKES in my long life. I've hurt myself and others with my mistakes, but I've also learned from my errors so that I don't make those mistakes anymore. BUT, I'm not a sinner. Nor have I violated any of the taboos that the human species feels shame about. I think what you mean by sin, a primatologist might call a taboo.
Here's one of my questions repeated because you haven't responded to it.
Do you understand that your disbelief in Buddha as god is exactly like my disbelief in Jesus as god? Both have books written about them. Both lived in the ancient past. Both transcend death. Both preach love. So everything which you say that discredits Buddha, you must also say against your belief about Jesus or you must stop discrediting other gods than your own. Otherwise, you could be charged with being irrational and illogical.
No, I'm not proud. Life has humbled me a great deal, but it hasn't broken my humanity.
Why of course. Everyone does at times. The worst sort of people, however, are those who don’t even know they’re lying to themselves. You find them quite often in churches and as TV evangelicals. Remember Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker, to name two of hundreds I’ve come across in my long lifetime?
Have you ever stolen anything before?
When I was a younger, but not anymore.
Have you ever looked on another woman to lust after her?
Well, of course, when I was in my prime. Me and Jimmy Carter, a man I admire for his honesty. I’m human and have normal procreative urges. Anyone who has never felt that urge isn’t functioning normally and is probably a danger to society. It’s really nice to have a wife one lusts over. That’s a good situation for a healthy male to be in.
Have you always honored your mother and father?
No. They didn’t earn it, but I let that anger go. Besides, they're dead now.
Have you ever coveted after anything of your neighbors?
Of course. That’s what makes the wheels of capitalism turn. Coveting my neighbors’ goods is what made me get out and earn the money to buy the same things my neighbors own.
Have you put any gods before the living God?
Many over the course of a long life: money, women, success, victory, looking good in my neighbors’ eyes…, then one grows older and wiser.
Have you ever used God’s; name in vain?
Of course. Have you ever been in the military? Cursing is a way of life in the military. I was in the Navy and I cursed up my share of curses. These days, I don't find it necessary to curse except on the rare occassion.
Have you ever hated someone?
No. It’s not in my nature to hate. I’ve been angry, but hate is something more than anger.
Have you always kept the Sabbath day holy?
No one knows which day the Biblical Sabbath fell on, so I can’t answer that. Further, I’m not Jewish so Saturdays have always been my day to have fun and get out and cut the lawn. Some religions have Friday as their holy days and others hold Saturday holy. Which day does your church imagine is the Sabbath?
Paul (if that's really your name or is it a reference to the Bible Paul) I know you just listed a bunch of things that someone “taught” you were sins, but here’s the sort of things I think I might name as sins: deceiving the young, gossip, bearing false witness, bigotry, contempt for those less fortunate than oneself, theft, incest, rape and murder.
I think the fact you call your errors in judgment "sin" while I call my errors "mistakes" is very revealing. We both agree we made mistakes, but we label them differently. I'll bet we probably feel differently about ourselves as a result of how we label our mistakes. Do your sins make you feel guilty, perhaps, while my mistakes I accept as mere human flaws? I hope that your sins don't make you feel guilty and shameful. That's a heck of a sad way to go through life. Feeling guilty all the time is truly dreadful.
Tell me why you haven't chosen The Tibetan Book of the Dead as your holy book or the Lotus Sutra? Have you read either of them? How about the Koran? Have you read it? If you are ignorant of all possible approaches to God how can you be certain that yours is the correct choice? What if you're a lost soul and don't even know it?
What do you think of Mormon Glenn Beck? Suppose Mormonism is the correct way to find God, being a final message from God that came later in time than the Bible itself? What then? Let us hope you've chosen correctly.
Paulvancouver, thank you for the nice comment which was in good timing. Your random act of kindness with inspiring words has been warmly received. All is well with me and I hope it is for you also.
Paul, there may very well be an appointed day of wrath, provided you believe in certain versions of the bible, not all do, I know, you do, I still have not made my mind up...
Jesus Christ can set you free from the law of sin and death.
Jesus says in John 10:10, "The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
paulvancouver — July 27, 2010 at 12:37 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
Who created god?
Why must people pray to a god who can obviously see everything, know all minds, and, thus, know all needs? Unless all that god NEEDS is to have his little ego puffed up by people bowing down and praying to him?
Why did a perfect being create an imperfect world?
Why did a loving creator create a world where suffering reigns, specially since he could see it all ahead of time.
Why should I honor a father who killed his own son to atone for his own murder of all mankind?
How come we can't see the fiery angels who are guarding the Garden of Eden? In fact, where is the Garden of Eden? If it needs guarding, then it's still got to be here where we can find it? Or was that story just a lot of malarkey?
Why did Noah get away with incest?
Why do Christians worship the son and not his father? No wonder he keeps hammering the South and the Bible bib with hurricanes, tornados, oil spills and floods.
Why didn't Jesus come back to perfect his kingdom before the death of his apostles as he promised them he would?
Since god knows the future, then the future is predetermined. Thus no man woman or child is guilty since they had to do as god foresaw they would do. If they could do differently and break free from god's foreordaining knowledge, then god would not be all powerful, so he preordained all the evil in the world, and there is no free will. Thus, no sin.
If Jesus is in heaven, sitting on the right hand of his father how can he and the father and the holy ghost be one? Was Jesus making that up?
Just one of a million or so questions I have for believers.
aintnogod — August 24, 2010 at 7:51 p.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
I don't think you understood some of my questions, so I'll clarify.
I asked who created god, but what I mean to say is where did god come from? If the Cosmos didn't exist until god created the Cosmos, what universe did god live in before the Cosmos was created? Does that make god an alien life form? Did god come from a Cosmos where many other gods live in order to create this Cosmos just for himself? Or did the Cosmos exist before god came to it? Or was god a "nowhere man" until he made somewhere for himself to be?
How does a perfect, all knowing, all seeing, all powerful god grow lonely? That's a pretty sad and weak god to feel loneliness.
Jesus said he was going back to heaven to sit at the right hand of god the father, his father. You say that god is both father and son. Then how did Jesus sit on his own right hand? Or does he just put his right down on his throne and sit on it?
You miss another point. If god created a perfect universe how did an imperfect man get into his perfect universe? The imperfect man is an imperfection in the so-called perfect universe. So it wasn't a perfect universe to begin with. Seems that god knew that he was creating an imperfect universe, so all sin is god's fault, not man's doing. Either that, or god doesn't have foreknowledge and, thus, he is not perfect himself.
Plus I got a lot of problems honoring a god who gave the human species a death sentence because they didn't obey him. What was he, some sort of king from the old days who just throws his power around to prove that he can do it? Besides I live in a Republic where the vote counts for a lot. Why does anyone want to live in dictatorship like the Christian, Jewish, Islamic paradises are?
Here's another flaw in the Christian plan. At least the Puritans were predestinarians and modern Christians have lost the way. If god can see the future, then the future must be predestined to happen. Therefore no man may escape god's foresight. If a man truly has a free will, then he can get around (escape) god's foreknowledge of the future. That means god is not as powerful as a man who can do as he pleases and not as god foresees that he will do. Pretty puny god if you ask me.
Now if you will answer these few questions with SOME REAL PROOFs, I'll have some real respect for the religious position, but if you can only quote the authority of an old, out-of-date book and don't reply to the serious logic of my questions, then I won't be convinced.
aintnogod — August 25, 2010 at 3:45 p.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
Well, thanks for trying, Paul. Sorry you couldn't answer my questions.
Do you ever ask probing questions about what you've been taught? I always do. I don’t like being taken advantage of. I can't help noticing that if you can believe in a god with so little evidence as one book, then you could believe in any holy book if you were born in another country. You appear to lean on an outside authority for you beliefs. Thus, if you were born in Jerusalem, you'd do as your rabbi teaches you or if born in Iraq, you'd do as the Koran says. I fear you might learn to believe whatever your nearest cultural authority teaches you to believe. Have you seriously considered that question?
Here's one last thought. I'm sure you don't believe in the god Buddha. That makes you an atheist when it comes to Buddha. For the same reason that you don't believe in Buddha, I don't believe in Jesus as god either. When you understand why you don't believe in Buddha, then you will understand why I don't believe in Jesus’s godliness and for exactly the same reasons. We are exactly the same when it comes to thinking about beliefs.
Take care, my friend,
aintnogod — August 26, 2010 at 3:46 p.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
You ask if I know sin. No, I don't. I don't believe in the concept of sin. That's a religious concept.
However, driven by the normal human fears that all human animals feel, I've made many MISTAKES in my long life. I've hurt myself and others with my mistakes, but I've also learned from my errors so that I don't make those mistakes anymore. BUT, I'm not a sinner. Nor have I violated any of the taboos that the human species feels shame about. I think what you mean by sin, a primatologist might call a taboo.
aintnogod — August 27, 2010 at 10:40 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
Here's one of my questions repeated because you haven't responded to it.
Do you understand that your disbelief in Buddha as god is exactly like my disbelief in Jesus as god? Both have books written about them. Both lived in the ancient past. Both transcend death. Both preach love. So everything which you say that discredits Buddha, you must also say against your belief about Jesus or you must stop discrediting other gods than your own. Otherwise, you could be charged with being irrational and illogical.
No, I'm not proud. Life has humbled me a great deal, but it hasn't broken my humanity.
aintnogod — August 27, 2010 at 10:50 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
paulvancouver left a comment on your wall:
Have you ever told a lie before?
Why of course. Everyone does at times. The worst sort of people, however, are those who don’t even know they’re lying to themselves. You find them quite often in churches and as TV evangelicals. Remember Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker, to name two of hundreds I’ve come across in my long lifetime?
Have you ever stolen anything before?
When I was a younger, but not anymore.
Have you ever looked on another woman to lust after her?
Well, of course, when I was in my prime. Me and Jimmy Carter, a man I admire for his honesty. I’m human and have normal procreative urges. Anyone who has never felt that urge isn’t functioning normally and is probably a danger to society. It’s really nice to have a wife one lusts over. That’s a good situation for a healthy male to be in.
Have you always honored your mother and father?
No. They didn’t earn it, but I let that anger go. Besides, they're dead now.
Have you ever coveted after anything of your neighbors?
Of course. That’s what makes the wheels of capitalism turn. Coveting my neighbors’ goods is what made me get out and earn the money to buy the same things my neighbors own.
Have you put any gods before the living God?
Many over the course of a long life: money, women, success, victory, looking good in my neighbors’ eyes…, then one grows older and wiser.
Have you ever used God’s; name in vain?
Of course. Have you ever been in the military? Cursing is a way of life in the military. I was in the Navy and I cursed up my share of curses. These days, I don't find it necessary to curse except on the rare occassion.
Have you ever hated someone?
No. It’s not in my nature to hate. I’ve been angry, but hate is something more than anger.
Have you always kept the Sabbath day holy?
No one knows which day the Biblical Sabbath fell on, so I can’t answer that. Further, I’m not Jewish so Saturdays have always been my day to have fun and get out and cut the lawn. Some religions have Friday as their holy days and others hold Saturday holy. Which day does your church imagine is the Sabbath?
Paul (if that's really your name or is it a reference to the Bible Paul) I know you just listed a bunch of things that someone “taught” you were sins, but here’s the sort of things I think I might name as sins: deceiving the young, gossip, bearing false witness, bigotry, contempt for those less fortunate than oneself, theft, incest, rape and murder.
Have you?
aintnogod — August 28, 2010 at 8:20 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
I think the fact you call your errors in judgment "sin" while I call my errors "mistakes" is very revealing. We both agree we made mistakes, but we label them differently. I'll bet we probably feel differently about ourselves as a result of how we label our mistakes. Do your sins make you feel guilty, perhaps, while my mistakes I accept as mere human flaws? I hope that your sins don't make you feel guilty and shameful. That's a heck of a sad way to go through life. Feeling guilty all the time is truly dreadful.
Tell me why you haven't chosen The Tibetan Book of the Dead as your holy book or the Lotus Sutra? Have you read either of them? How about the Koran? Have you read it? If you are ignorant of all possible approaches to God how can you be certain that yours is the correct choice? What if you're a lost soul and don't even know it?
What do you think of Mormon Glenn Beck? Suppose Mormonism is the correct way to find God, being a final message from God that came later in time than the Bible itself? What then? Let us hope you've chosen correctly.
Who really knows?
aintnogod — August 31, 2010 at 10:47 p.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
Paulvancouver, thank you for the nice comment which was in good timing. Your random act of kindness with inspiring words has been warmly received. All is well with me and I hope it is for you also.
goldenoldie — September 12, 2010 at 5:22 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )
Paul, there may very well be an appointed day of wrath, provided you believe in certain versions of the bible, not all do, I know, you do, I still have not made my mind up...
photoguy — January 27, 2011 at 11:56 a.m. ( reply | permalink | suggest removal )