@mchill saidIt's too much to ask.
"Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. -Matthew 10:32
These were the words Jesus Christ spoke all those years ago. The just penalty for your sins has already been paid. All that is asked of you is that you believe it and acknowledge it to others. Not so much to ask, is it? If you won't do even that, you're setting yourself up to lose.
I cannot simply decide to believe something that I currently do not believe.
That is not how belief works.
If you feel otherwise, then I invite you to decide to believe the Moon is made of Green Cheese.
@bigdogg saidAh, I thought the moon was made of Swiss cheese!
It's too much to ask.
I cannot simply decide to believe something that I currently do not believe.
That is not how belief works.
If you feel otherwise, then I invite you to decide to believe the Moon is made of Green Cheese.
@mchill said[Matthew 7:12-14 NKJV] 12 "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. 13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide [is] the gate and broad [is] the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 "Because narrow [is] the gate and difficult [is] the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
"Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. -Matthew 10:32
These were the words Jesus Christ spoke all those years ago. The just penalty for your sins has already been paid. All that is asked of you is that you believe it and acknowledge it to others. Not so much to ask, is it? If you won't do even that, you're setting yourself up to lose.
[James 2:19 NKJV] 19 "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe--and tremble!"
Food for thoughts?
@bigdogg saidNo Christian in his right mind is going to ask you to believe in something you don't know is true.
It's too much to ask.
I cannot simply decide to believe something that I currently do not believe.
When you know you'll know, then you will believe.
Until then, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" Matthew 7:7
The Greek says ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock, reverently, and keep on knocking.
If Jesus is who he says he is, then it will be given you, you will find and it will be opened to you.
I can't tell you how or when or in what circumstances.
@fmf saidFunny, you chose not to believe.
The notion that one can somehow simply choose or decide to believe in something supernatural that one does not find credible rings false, psychologically speaking, as does the notion that it is somehow an issue of free will.
Others can choose to believe as well.
Of course, as you have seen, this choice is a continuum, not a binary.
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@ghost-of-a-duke saidGandhi loved Jesus and His teachings. Especially, "The Sermon on the Mount." Gandhi read the Bible often. However, he did not care for many who claimed to be Christians. He was treated extremely rude with most supposed Christians he met. He went into a Christian church in South Africa to worship with them and they physically threw him out. Sounds like most Evangelical Christians I know today...
Following Vishnu isn't much to ask is it?
If you won't do even that, you're setting yourself up to lose.
""I like your Christ, but not your Christianity"[Gandhi].
"I believe in the teachings of Christ, but you on the other side of the world do not, I read the Bible faithfully and see little in Christendom that those who profess faith pretend to see.
"The Christians above all others are seeking after wealth. Their aim is to be rich at the expense of their neighbors. They come among aliens to exploit them for their own good and cheat them to do so. Their prosperity is far more essential to them than the life, liberty, and happiness of others.
The Christians are the most warlike people."
Gandhi did not get along well with many Hindi's either. Same Hypocritical BS; just a different religion.
@KingDavid403
Christian missionary William Carey (1761 - 1834) did a great service for the people of India. He translated the entire Bible into the language of Bengali.
He also translated their own sacred sanskrit for the common people to see that they were not required to burn deceased husbands wives alive on the funeral mound of thier husbands. When the people enslaved by this practice read thier own sacred texts arrested out of the hands of a priesly class, they discovered that they did NOT have to burn women alive when their husbands died.
He was deeply upset by the Indian’s deep-rooted religious nature expressed by the innumerable shrines, the offerings of food and flowers, and the incredible sufferings they were willing to endure in their quest for spiritual peace. He was most outraged by the terrible practice of Sati, which was a traditional funeral custom where if a man died, his body would be burned, and his wife, or wives, would throw themselves onto the burning pyre in order to kill themselves.
Sati was practiced for thousands of years in India because women were considered to have no value apart from their husbands. They believed that they had to go to the spirit land to continue serving their husbands after their death. If a woman did not want to take part in the ceremony, she was often forced onto the burning pyre to die.
William Carey fought against this inhumane practice for more than thirty-five years until December 1829, when Sati was banned in the entire British Empire, including India. William was asked to translate the degree of Sati’s abolishment into Bengali, thus severing this tradition from Indian culture.
https://bethanygu.edu/blog/stories/william-carey/
[my bolding]
@sonship saidThanks for sharing this info.
@KingDavid403
Christian missionary William Carey (1761 - 1834) did a great service for the people of India. He translated the entire Bible into the language of Bengali.
He also translated their own sacred sanskrit for the common people to see that they were not required to burn theire wives alive on the funeral mound of thier husbands. When the people enslav ...[text shortened]... an culture. [/b] [/quote]
https://bethanygu.edu/blog/stories/william-carey/
[my bolding]
God Bless. 🙂
@sonship saidIf you want to trade information on religious atrocities in that very same period let me know. Christians were the worst.
@KingDavid403
Christian missionary William Carey (1761 - 1834) did a great service for the people of India. He translated the entire Bible into the language of Bengali.
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@rajk999 saidMost European and USA Christians in the 1700s were liberal, even compared to today. It started changing back to over-zealous conservatism in the mid- to late 1800s.
If you want to trade information on religious atrocities in that very same period let me know. Christians were the worst.
Christians committed many murderous horrors during the 1500s and 1600s; and all in the name of Christ. Go figure that one will ya... This caused Christians in Europe and USA to swing liberal for over a hundred years or so.
Most Christian religions of man, surely do not have a good history record; I'll give you that.