Christianity Today

@kellyjay said
You think anything outside of the blood of Jesus Christ is going to save them, maybe if they were members of some political party is going to impress God more than having Jesus as Lord?

And yet, something prevents you from addressing the OP of this thread. If it's not your fear of your God figure, presumably it's some sort of integrity-annihilating fealty you have for "some political party", right?

@kellyjay said
Seriously, you think anyone without Christ standing before God regardless of the position they had in this life, be it a ruler or not, is going to fare well for eternity?

Do you think ~ according to your Christian perspective ~ that the criticisms levelled at the US president, according to the Christian perspective expressed in the editorial mentioned in the OP, are valid?

@kellyjay said
You realize that the Pharisees, Sadducees, Lawyers, and Scribes educated men in religious studies in Jesus’ time when He was here as a man, and they were able to deny God’s work while Jesus was doing all the great signs! When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, what happens? Their education show them God was at work among them; no, they plotted to kill not only Jesus but Laz ...[text shortened]... he truth, I don't care if your studies put letters behind your name, gain the world, lose your soul.

With respect Kelly, I think you just fail to understand how education works. I didn't just sit around independently developing my own opinions on the various religions. I studied the opinions of others through the prism of my various tutors (all Christian). So, for example, I am well versed in the teleological argument as put forward by such thinkers as William Paley or Thomas Aquinas and even now could probably rustle up a fairly decent essay on this argument (from both sides) and explain why they believed what they believed. Indeed, when it came to exams most of what I wrote was from their perspective and I was well armed with their quotes etc.

But here's the point. I didn't have to believe the teleological argument myself in order to understand what others thought about it. For me it was a purely academic exercise and no different than if I were studying history or geology. I have made no claims to know God in any spiritual way or know how it 'feels' to believe in God. But, sticking with the teleological example, my knowledge on this argument is no less valid than the knowledge acquired by a Christian on this topic, and the knowledge I hold on it is certainly not worthless, uneducated or ignorant.

Knowledge is knowledge.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Knowledge is knowledge.

I think KellyJay believes there is a kind of magic knowledge that he has access to [i.e. understands] on account of the fact he believes the knowledge is both magic and true. He also thinks that this "knowledge" of his is objective.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
With respect Kelly, I think you just fail to understand how education works. I didn't just sit around independently developing my own opinions on the various religions. I studied the opinions of others through the prism of my various tutors (all Christian). So, for example, I am well versed in the teleological argument as put forward by such thinkers as William Paley ...[text shortened]... nowledge I hold on it is certainly not worthless, uneducated or ignorant.

Knowledge is knowledge.

I think that reality is of much more important than the way our education systems work, today they cannot even tell what bathroom children are supposed to go into, and I'm supposed to be impressed with them? They teach tolerance of all views, but they are not, they will shut out, shout down those with whom they disagree. They condemn those they disagree with by doing the very thing they are against, being intolerant.

It doesn't matter what your degrees are in if you miss the truth, and you are missing Him. Dead thinkers arguments and essays are nothing next to Christ, the whole of the scriptures you have studied are all about God prepping us for Christ, Christ is born, Christ dying, Christ rising from the dead and you cannot even put together the systematic nature of scripture to see that God has been doing a work in this world. Instead, you take Word and turn it into a work of fiction! I'm supposed to accept you are someone I can trust when it comes to scripture, you don't believe in it, and neither do you divide it correctly!

As a person, you are one of my favorites here, but I’m not going to blow smoke up your butt. It is you I’m concern about, I disagree with others here too, but the disagreements on my part are not personal even if they think my doctrine is from Satan. I do believe in a devil’s hell, and I do believe those that miss Christ are all without exception going there, and there will be no respect of persons. I also think we all deserve it, and we are so bad we can’t even see how unrighteous we are. One act of willful disobedience led to the life we see today with all the murders, stealing, lying, and so on. It isn’t God who is evil, God is good, and its also not because we are so cool God had to save us. He is saving us because He is good, not because we worth saving.

@kellyjay said
I think that reality is of much more important than the way our education systems work, today they cannot even tell what bathroom children are supposed to go into, and I'm supposed to be impressed with them? They teach tolerance of all views, but they are not, they will shut out, shout down those with whom they disagree. They condemn those they disagree with by doing the ver ...[text shortened]... we are so cool God had to save us. He is saving us because He is good, not because we worth saving.

So you are unable to discuss the things you believe with people who believe different things from you, is that the long and short of it?

@kellyjay said
I do believe in a devil’s hell, and I do believe those that miss Christ are all without exception going there, and there will be no respect of persons. I also think we all deserve it, and we are so bad we can’t even see how unrighteous we are.

So, you mean, maybe you are going there too when you die, and you will deserve it?

@KellyJay

Here is the full quote I provided immediately before you entered the thread in question, and accused me of not providing a quote:

In an LSM publication, A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing (p. 54), Lee states, ”My burden is to show you clearly that God’s economy and plan is to make Himself man and to make us, His created beings, God.” On page 53 we read, “We are born of God; hence, in this sense, we are God.” In the same publication, Lee refers to the Triune God as now the ‘four-in-one’ God, with man as the fourth person.'

If you ever want to address this quote, rather than tiptoeing around it, be my guest.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
@KellyJay

Here is the full quote I provided immediately before you entered the thread in question, and accused me of not providing a quote:

In an LSM publication, A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing (p. 54), Lee states, ”My burden is to show you clearly that God’s economy and plan is to make Himself man and to make us, His created beings, God.” On page 53 we ...[text shortened]... th person.'

If you ever want to address this quote, rather than tiptoeing around it, be my guest.

We are not God, uncreated, self-sustaining from eternity past, present, and eternally to come. We are children of God made to be in His image! We are to call God Father, Jesus directs us to that, so in that sense, we are in the family of God, that for God's good pleasure, it is not something we have or can earn on our own, it is a divine work of God, not man, we actually resist this due to our fallen nature.

We are in our corrupted nature trying to be God, calling things good and evil as we see fit, while we are not the ones who see beginning to end, not the ones who hold the universe together by the power of our words, and so on. So I think I know what he may have been trying to say when he made those points, but I do not like how it was worded I believe it could be taken in ways that elevates us in ways not entirely Biblically.

Had you just pointed me to the quote I would not have continued asking for it, you knowing when and where it was, was not knowledge I had, I was ignorant about its location and full content.

@kellyjay said
We are not God, uncreated, self-sustaining from eternity past, present, and eternally to come. We are children of God made to be in His image! We are to call God Father, Jesus directs us to that, so in that sense, we are in the family of God, that for God's good pleasure, it is not something we have or can earn on our own, it is a divine work of God, not man, we actually res ...[text shortened]... when and where it was, was not knowledge I had, I was ignorant about its location and full content.

So in short, you disagree with Lee and Sonship.

To prevent such future episodes of annoyance, can I kindly suggest that if you come to a thread late, familiarise yourself with the few posts leading up to the one you want to reply to. It is not incumbent upon you (or anyone else) to read the entire thread (especially if a long one) just the last few posts to give the context of the post you are responding to. I don't think that is an unreasonable request.

The alternative is that you isolate a particular post, miss its context (something you have said yourself is important) and break the flow of the conversation you have entered. - If you had done that on this occasion you would have seen the full quote I provided to Sonship and not made the false accusation that I was putting words into Lee's mouth.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
So in short, you disagree with Lee and Sonship.

To prevent such future episodes of annoyance, can I kindly suggest that if you come to a thread late, familiarise yourself with the few posts leading up to the one you want to reply to. It is not incumbent upon you (or anyone else) to read the entire thread (especially if a long one) just the last few posts to give th ...[text shortened]... e I provided to Sonship and not made the false accusation that I was putting words into Lee's mouth.

You want to push rules on other's reading and posting habits write book and those that care can buy it.

@kellyjay said

Had you just pointed me to the quote I would not have continued asking for it, you knowing when and where it was, was not knowledge I had, I was ignorant about its location and full content.

That is not a valid parallel by the way to the use of 'ignorant' when describing my knowledge of the Bible. I am certainly ignorant of quantum mechanics, but the same can not be said of a subject I spent several years studying at an academic level. Indeed, if you push me on the issue it is actually more truthful to describe yourself as ignorant of your own religious book, due to the clear gaps you have in knowledge regarding its origin and finer detail.

@kellyjay said
You want to push rules on other's reading and posting habits write book and those that care can buy it.

It was a reasonable request.

Entirely your decision if you want to be reasonable.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
That is not a valid parallel by the way to the use of 'ignorant' when describing my knowledge of the Bible. I am certainly ignorant of quantum mechanics, but the same can not be said of a subject I spent several years studying at an academic level. Indeed, if you push me on the issue it is actually more truthful to describe yourself as ignorant of your own religious book, due to the clear gaps you have in knowledge regarding its origin and finer detail.

You have a lot of knowledge, but you miss the truth, One God, One creation, for God's purpose. You are forever learning, but never coming to the understanding of the truth! That is the bottom line when we reach the cause that has no reason other than itself so you look and look drawing conclusions about things and putting them together in ways they don't belong. When discussing scripture, I told you the whole thing, not a verse here or there is required. You avoid all the scriptures that describe the revelation of God to man about Himself, only so that you can reveal what you think about Him.

You avoid things like,
1 Kings (ESV)
Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

Isaiah (ESV)
“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.

Deuteronomy (ESV)
“Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

Titus (ESV)
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

It is because of God’s goodness we are not destroyed due to our sinful lives, His long-suffering and loving-kindness. One God, with one purpose, doing a work revealed in scriptures, and you and all of your study miss it in scriptures, and you can look at the universe and miss it in life too. You look for reasons, and all you can come up with is not a reason, just another piece of so-called knowledge that may or may not be what you think it means. Just as Dawkins said to paraphrase him, life only looks designed but it isn't, where he errors is due to a truth he cannot stand, that there is a first cause making life look designed because it is. He has a great deal of knowledge, but Dawkins misses the truth, because he wants no part of it, not because it isn't right there in front of him.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
It was a reasonable request.

Entirely your decision if you want to be reasonable.

You really want to beat this dead horse more?