-Removed-Because it is. It doesn't exactly affect us in the here and now. If you're saved, you're saved, if you're not, then maybe you've got some work to do, IF you accept that Jesus is Lord. Banging on about this isn't going to bring people to God if they don't believe, the veil must be pierced first. I think a far more important part of Christian doctrine should be bringing more people to Christ, especially in these "latter days", either young people who don't know him yet, or the older population (those who may have been "too busy" in their younger years to spend much time thinking about the hereafter) or the "lost" segment of population (the people others have forgotten), the homeless, the disabled, the veterans, the poor, the convicted.
If you want to change the minds of already saved Christians, this is not the place. As we get older, we become more set in our ways, and our beliefs settle around us like concrete. If you just want to argue, that's one thing, but if you actually want to effect change, it just ain't happening here, I'm afraid.
I'm going to suggest something that may be rather shocking to you. Look around and find a church that believes most closely with your beliefs, and then attend services. Go to a few extra-Sunday meetings and gatherings to gauge the minds of those who attend with you. Talk to some of them about their beliefs. Try to finally get a feel as to what the "man-in-the-street" Christians really believe and how it narrates their lives. You might learn a few things.
-Removed-If you don't like getting back what you're always serving up then you know what you can do about it. Or at the very least you should know.
It's not very complicated or difficult to understand...you can either keep serving up the same old crap, or you can try serving up something else.
But continually complaining about it coming back onto you can only serve to make you look very small... it makes you look like a spoiled self serving brat. So come on, be honest, is this the sort of image of yourself you want to put on display? Is this really how you want to be seen?
Or have you completely lost your mind, and lost (or perhaps never had) the ability to see yourself as others do?
Originally posted by Suzianneyep, that's what it is... Jack Nicholson stirring up a bit of mischief inside the funny farm asylum. I got new glasses last week, so now I can see those tiny little avatars on my tiny little lap top screen.
And what's up with your new avatar? I can't really see the details in these small images without my reading glasses.
Is that Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
I was going to suggest to divegeester that he ignore me and focus more of his attention on what you've been telling him, but if I'm the one telling him this then I'm afraid it will have the opposite effect... so I'm suggesting this in a message to you instead of to him.
-Removed-LOL "reigniting the animosity between us", that's rich. It was you who started up this so called "animosity between us" only after I suggested you might be a wolf in sheeps clothing, and have since gone out of your way to reignite it at threads that have nothing to do with your particular doctrinal pet peeve. You really can't expect me to buy into what you're saying here, because to quote you from another one of your recent messages it's "ludicrous in construct to even the simple minded." So what happened to you, did you forget about "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"... or was that something else Jesus said you don't agree with?
Okay I'll tell you what, I'll leave you be and stop bothering you. Because sooner or later you'll be taking this issue of hell up face to face with none other than the son of God himself. So good luck to you, but if you don't make it then all I can say is tough tiddly winks... you have your entire lifetime to figure this out, and if you want to squander it all away with petty quibbling that's your prerogative.
And by the way, although I did have some initial doubt about you actually being a wolf in sheeps clothing, i'm pretty much convinced that's exactly what you are. You are someone who wants to exercise control over a religion you don't particularly like 'as is', and re-form it into your own image... sounds a quite a bit like some familiar Biblical character we've all heard about, doesn't it.
-Removed-The issue of eternal suffering isn't the only thing you've questioned, you've also questioned whether or not the Bible God is credited with inspiring can be trusted (as is) or not. Is God (in your opinion) able to accomplish this, or do you believe as the atheists do that God is only an idea invented by men?
You've conspicuously avoided answering several of my own questions to you about other matters concerning God and the Bible... but then here you are again, pretending to be interested enough in only one of those issues that even after the question has been answered you keep on insisting on an answer.
So what's the real story here... are you just here to have a bit of fun by being devilishly persistent in asking the same questions over and over again while ignoring the answers, or are you legitimately and/or legally insane?