everything but the purpose

[TMA_1]

Talking to christians and those of you who will not rape this thread with flames. If you plan on trying to in any way ruin or taint it then you dont have any business to post. It is always to post for a reason, many of you do so, but some have a tendancy of rarely posting with meaning.

It seems that in america especially, christians focus on everythinng but the fundimentals of christianity. Even fundimentalists miss the point, usually even worse actually than others. These days it is all social engineering. Trying to put the ten commandments in school, trying to destroy abortion clinics (both in legal and illegal fashions.) Attempting to force homosexuality to become illegal, and in the end trying todirectly destroy the free will of an individual in all these choices and more. The biggest thing is how christians try to change the nation by slapping christian sentiments everywhere, hoping that the "sickness and disease" basically anybody that istn a christian, will change to their mode of thinking.

It seems that this arrogance and ignorance of the bible is going way out of control. They seem to forget that in the bible, God never tried to stop old testament kings from having multipule wives, even though it was forbidden by him. He never tried to stop people from skirting away from paying taxes, he never tried to stop people from things like homosexuality. All he did was cleanse all of these problems when it got too out of hand. Even slavery was never dealt with, even though each seven years jews were supposed to free jewish and non jewish slaves. God did not interfere because the jews were the ones that were destroying themselves. Just like christians now days. We try to fight every social injustice but seem to forget that changing the exterior of a problem does not change the sentiments of an individual. This social gospel that people preach is more important to them than giving somebody the information that would change that person from within. Philemon for example, when talked about in the early church fathers freed the slave mentioned in the book of philemon. After he had prayed and studied, he realized the evil of slavery because it broke one of the cardinal sins, which is the destruction of free will. People who converted gave up lifestyles that were worldly, gave up their posessions, gave up people they considered posessions. Began to treat their wife, or the wife to her husband better when converted. ALl of these great things happened when an individual was allowed to change from within, instead of forced to change with rules and a negation of free will. Instead of giving somebody the freedom to change by themselves, and giving them the gospel, we give the gospel with a message of posession or arrogance. We make people feel inferior, and by doing so others consider christ as inferior to them. CHristians wonder why the church is so hated? because we are our own worst enemy.

That doesnt excuse those who are ultra liberal though. I have known many christians who open their beliefs to accompany things that are strictly forbidden in the bible. They misunderstand the meaning of free will, and believe that we shouldnt even try to help other believers see their errors. They allow people to give in to each temptation, eventually succumbing to nihilism and emptiness.

You have two sides. You have those who allow evils to happen, like slavery, sexual lust, bitterness, greed, and many other mental attitude problems. These people are nihilists.

You have the other people who I call pharasies. These people fight to change every social injustice in the world. tehy fight for every stand they can find, but forget the whole point of allowing others to change by their own free will by the grace of christ.

somewhere in the middle, we need to allow people to change for themselves. At the same time though if we see another believer or person acting out of line, and effecting somebody else's free will, we need to say something, but not force them to change. It seems that these days you have pharasies attacking everybody, creating enemies left and right. you then have those who only care about what people think of them, and allow every kind of sin and temptation to go by without a word out of fear.

Christians these days focus on everything but the message of christianity. That is to give the gospel of christ. We arent supposed to "give the gospel and then tell them to stop every sinful act they do." we arent to "give the gospel and never teach them of what the bible says." We are supposed to act as friends and teach, but not preach. I myself have a tendancy to preach, and act preachy to the point of annoyance. I try my hardest not to though. I just think that christians are apart of the decay of american culture. Instead of teaching as I said, and giving the only true message of christianity, they either add their own messages to it and try to change the world based on their own arrogance, or you have those who allow people to do as they wish because of fear to be "puritanical". We focus on everything but christ.

anybody see what I mean? please make constructive posts and anybody can give a message here, just dont try to bash it.

[Scrinlord]

I agree completly. The message of Christianity is supposed to be one of love and understanding. It is one thing to witness to people, and tell them of the bible and Christs love, but it is quite another to grab them by the throat and scream "Your going to Hell!" Which unfortunatly, is all that most Christians today do in this country.

[Acriku]

Which is why I think Jesus was an alien.

[TMA_1]

if you read my post acriku, (which is a problem of yours, you never read posts.) you would see that I told people not to make statements degrading the message I was trying to give, or write something completely off topic or something that I find has no merit to the conversation. That post is what I was talking about that you made. Either you make constructive talk or you stop posting here. dont dodge what I said, just do it or leave.

keep this on topic people, I really want to discuss this matter.

by the way, I totally agree with you scrinlord, it is just too much now days the way many christians act.

[Gobalopper]

People seem to forget that living by example portrays a much better image of Christianity then living by forcing it down peoples throat.

"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." - 1 Timothy 4:12

[ordos45]

They seem to forget that in the bible, God never tried to stop old testament kings from having multipule wives, even though it was forbidden by him. He never tried to stop people from skirting away from paying taxes, he never tried to stop people from things like homosexuality. All he did was cleanse all of these problems when it got too out of hand. Even slavery was never dealt with, even though each seven years jews were supposed to free jewish and non jewish slaves. God did not interfere because the jews were the ones that were destroying themselves. Just like christians now days.

Now look at what you said about people who let such things happen...

You have two sides. You have those who allow evils to happen, like slavery, sexual lust, bitterness, greed, and many other mental attitude problems. These people are nihilists.

Thus by that logic, God is a Nihilist himself.

Anyhow, I agree, we focus more on the social issues of the day, and less on the gospel. It is quite amazing how many people view the Great Commission as "Ram it down their throats".

[Scrinlord]

You have two sides. You have those who allow evils to happen, like slavery, sexual lust, bitterness, greed, and many other mental attitude problems. These people are nihilists.

Thus by that logic, God is a Nihilist himself.

I believe(corerct me if I am wrong) but I beleive that what he was talking about was people who just back out of other peoples buisiness because they do not care or feel that they dont have the right to interfere. God was not uncarring, he just allowed them to make their own mistakes, after having been warned by Him

[TMA_1]

scrinlord is right in my interpritation. you kinda messed up on it ordos, though it is understandable. THe difference is this.

humans let things happen based on their own fears and reservations on the matter, they have alterior and often sinister motives for it.

God himself cannot control man, only let them obey or deny the standards he has put out on the human race. He will interfere only when it has gotten so bad as to effect the free will of all people,and where there are only a slim amount of people who truly believe.

See, people who do nothing and let things happen without teaching anything, they do it either out of fear, or out of worry that they will look like all the other christians, thus mock other christians with the same breath. They dont want to be looked at as foolish and stupid. It reminds me of cs lewis, what he said once. There are those christians that will go to church and do so feeling superior to those arrogant high brows who dont understand true spiritaul matters. He will then hang out with thsoe highbrows and mock the christians he goes to church with because they are so vapid and shallowminded.

God is sovergn, and will not interfere unless it is required. That is how it seems to us. YOu have to understand though that he decreed everything to happen before time and space was created. It isnt that God does nothing ordos, it is that he does what he has ordained before time existed. That often seems like nothing to us, but we are pretty ignorant beings.

I know it is hard for you ordos because you often seem ashamed of christianity because of how others of the faith act. But by being ashamed or afraid of being apart of the body of christ, you forget the paramount issue. that christ needs to be preached. and that this body and this inferior mind we have will only last a few more decades.

[Scrinlord]

God himself cannot control man, only let them obey or deny the standards he has put out on the human race. He will interfere only when it has gotten so bad as to effect the free will of all people,and where there are only a slim amount of people who truly believe.

This, I suppose, is where we differin opinions. I believe that God very well COULD control man, but that he doesn't. Not because he is unable, but because long ago he gave us free will, and he does not want to break that gift to us.

[TMA_1]

eek, I guess I should have explained better. of course he could control man. He doesnt though because he gave us free will, exactly waht you said. I totally agree with you on that and I did mean it that way.

[Acriku]

if you read my post acriku, (which is a problem of yours, you never read posts.) you would see that I told people not to make statements degrading the message I was trying to give, or write something completely off topic or something that I find has no merit to the conversation. That post is what I was talking about that you made. Either you make constructive talk or you stop posting here. dont dodge what I said, just do it or leave.

keep this on topic people, I really want to discuss this matter.

by the way, I totally agree with you scrinlord, it is just too much now days the way many christians act.

Actually, mine contributed a very thought-provoking message. You didn't realize that because you're too heartfelt on me as an enemy. Allow me to explain: In a world of chaos, power, greed, and bloodshed, in comes this man of such humble nature, who brings a message like a drop of water in a dried out palm. He softens the hardened iron heart, stills the boiling waters of the mind, as if out of nowhere. Nowhere...except outer space. Jesus is an alien. Boggles the mind :O

[TMA_1]

I am asking you politely not to post here if you dont contribute, and I dont believe you are. I will ask the moderators of this site soon for you to stop.

[Navaros]

TMA1 - you are not a Christian. do not say you are.

do not quote or name CS Lewis - he was a real Christian and you obviously have *no idea* what he stood for because it is the polar opposite of what you stand for. you do not care about God or His Will, and everything you said in your first post in this thread is, as usual, 100% WRONG!

you know nothing about the Bible, so stop pretending that you do.

God did not "allow" homosexuals as you say he did. Of course, God does not call them "homosexuals" because that is a contrived and invalid word made up by Sodomites in an failed attempt to legitimize their deviancy.

God said the punishment for Sodomites was instant death. if a Sodomite was found in the nation of Israel, God's direct Word's to Moses was that the Sodomite was to be executed immediately. to say that God "allows homosexuals to do what they want" is utterly absurd. in the very first book of the Bible, God destroyed two cities simply because they were full of homosexuals.

God does not smile upon murder and holocausts simply because He gave mankind Free Will, as you have stated He does in your first post here. God opposes all evil, and does not sit back and dote while the evil of mankind manifests itself by way of genocide against children and think "it's ok, because that is "Free Will". Free Will is not a licence to do whatever you please and think that God will not care. Free Will is not a licence to murder whoever you feel like murdering, (especially children!) because "God said that murder is my choice".

i am thoroughly disgusted by your original post, TMA1. you have reached a new low. the best advice i can give you is to stop perverting God's Word to pretend it is consistent with the hot air that spout out of the top of your head (yet which you claim to be Biblical). that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the one un-forgivable sin.

[Caid Ivik]

Talking to christians and those of you who will not rape this thread with flames. If you plan on trying to in any way ruin or taint it then you dont have any business to post. It is always to post for a reason, many of you do so, but some have a tendancy of rarely posting with meaning.

It seems that in america especially, christians focus on everythinng but the fundimentals of christianity. Even fundimentalists miss the point, usually even worse actually than others. These days it is all social engineering. Trying to put the ten commandments in school, trying to destroy abortion clinics (both in legal and illegal fashions.) Attempting to force homosexuality to become illegal, and in the end trying todirectly destroy the free will of an individual in all these choices and more. The biggest thing is how christians try to change the nation by slapping christian sentiments everywhere, hoping that the "sickness and disease" basically anybody that istn a christian, will change to their mode of thinking.

It seems that this arrogance and ignorance of the bible is going way out of control. They seem to forget that in the bible, God never tried to stop old testament kings from having multipule wives, even though it was forbidden by him. He never tried to stop people from skirting away from paying taxes, he never tried to stop people from things like homosexuality. All he did was cleanse all of these problems when it got too out of hand. Even slavery was never dealt with, even though each seven years jews were supposed to free jewish and non jewish slaves. God did not interfere because the jews were the ones that were destroying themselves. Just like christians now days. We try to fight every social injustice but seem to forget that changing the exterior of a problem does not change the sentiments of an individual. This social gospel that people preach is more important to them than giving somebody the information that would change that person from within. Philemon for example, when talked about in the early church fathers freed the slave mentioned in the book of philemon. After he had prayed and studied, he realized the evil of slavery because it broke one of the cardinal sins, which is the destruction of free will. People who converted gave up lifestyles that were worldly, gave up their posessions, gave up people they considered posessions. Began to treat their wife, or the wife to her husband better when converted. ALl of these great things happened when an individual was allowed to change from within, instead of forced to change with rules and a negation of free will. Instead of giving somebody the freedom to change by themselves, and giving them the gospel, we give the gospel with a message of posession or arrogance. We make people feel inferior, and by doing so others consider christ as inferior to them. CHristians wonder why the church is so hated? because we are our own worst enemy.

That doesnt excuse those who are ultra liberal though. I have known many christians who open their beliefs to accompany things that are strictly forbidden in the bible. They misunderstand the meaning of free will, and believe that we shouldnt even try to help other believers see their errors. They allow people to give in to each temptation, eventually succumbing to nihilism and emptiness.

You have two sides. You have those who allow evils to happen, like slavery, sexual lust, bitterness, greed, and many other mental attitude problems. These people are nihilists.

You have the other people who I call pharasies. These people fight to change every social injustice in the world. tehy fight for every stand they can find, but forget the whole point of allowing others to change by their own free will by the grace of christ.

somewhere in the middle, we need to allow people to change for themselves. At the same time though if we see another believer or person acting out of line, and effecting somebody else's free will, we need to say something, but not force them to change. It seems that these days you have pharasies attacking everybody, creating enemies left and right. you then have those who only care about what people think of them, and allow every kind of sin and temptation to go by without a word out of fear.

Christians these days focus on everything but the message of christianity. That is to give the gospel of christ. We arent supposed to "give the gospel and then tell them to stop every sinful act they do." we arent to "give the gospel and never teach them of what the bible says." We are supposed to act as friends and teach, but not preach. I myself have a tendancy to preach, and act preachy to the point of annoyance. I try my hardest not to though. I just think that christians are apart of the decay of american culture. Instead of teaching as I said, and giving the only true message of christianity, they either add their own messages to it and try to change the world based on their own arrogance, or you have those who allow people to do as they wish because of fear to be "puritanical". We focus on everything but christ.

anybody see what I mean? please make constructive posts and anybody can give a message here, just dont try to bash it.

Fundament of christianity is judaism, religion based on Old Testament, alongside with Jesus' teaching of God's primary substance, love. Because of love (or better, need of love) He created the universe with worlds and humans, His intelligent emissaries. Let the world is dynamic, He also gave us a free will, thinking separate of our natural intentions. But then we've found out: God is not intervening, so let's eat the fruit of wisdom and become our own lords! THERE started all evil and abomination.

For He knew we would destroy ourselves, if we would "command" ourselves by sin, He sent us Law. Who stays with Law, stays with God, and thus with life (by the way, polygamy was not forbidden until Jesus started to talk about husband and wife as a "one person in two"). Staying with Law is needed, punishment comes in this life already: thieves won't enjoy theft for long, adulters will perhaps get AIDS, as well as those who have eaten "dirty meat" would catch some disease. Law in Old Testament is not just a codex of forbidden things; it is codex of things, which are attempts for a suicide.

Jesus said, he came not to banish it, just to add some things, let we can better understand - but not simplify it! True christian focuses on truth. Jesus is a truth, but only when connected to Father.

[Scrinlord]

Nav, I suggest you go back and read his original post again. Everything he said actually makes sense. He even said at the third paragraph that

"All he did was cleanse all of these problems when it got too out of hand."

God laid down his rules, but he did nothing other than that to enforce His will until the problem was getting out of hand. He gave us free will, and we use it as we may. This is a fact. It is also a fact that if we get to out of control and go against Gods will with it, that God will do something about it.

And Nav, look around you. Homosexuality exists. Therefore, God did "allow" it to happen.

But you missed the entire point of his post, while at the same time doing a perfect job of personifying it. Read the bible again Nav, especially the New Testement. The message of Christianity is supposed to be to forgive each other. To love your neighbor as yourself. To spread the word of the God of love and mercy. If we live a life of forgivness, and we live out Gods word as He intended, then we will reach a lot more people with Christs message than we will ever reach by grabbing them by the collar and screaming in their face: "Convert or Die!"

And I am sorry if this post does not make perfect grammatical sense, as I just woke up, but I think that it makes enough sense for you to understand what I mean.

[Navaros]

Schrinlord, you and TMA1 are totally out to lunch.

Yes, God does allow some things to happen due to Free Will.

However, that is *NOT* all that TMA1 is saying. What TMA1 is saying is that God does not want the righteous to intervene and make laws & take actions against these evil things. By doing that, TMA1 is perverting the message of God to convey what he *wishes* it says (like "Churches" who appoint "gay bishops" ), not what God has said.

God and Jesus have commanded their followers to go boldly into the world and fight against all evil things. Not stand aside and say "God gave them Free Will to commit genocide against babies, so we better not interfere!"

A "Christian" who does not actively fight against everything that God says is wrong with this world is no Christian at all. Such a person does not believe what God has said in the Bible, nor does he obey God's commands of him to stand up for righteousness no matter what the cost.

[Scrinlord]

I am not TMA, so I cannot vouch exactly for what he is saying but I get this out of it: We are not saying that we should not fight against what God says is wrong. What we are opposing is the method in which we fight against said evils. I agree with you that we should oppose everything that God opposes, and fight to rid the world of evils, but there are better ways to fight than seeing who can yell his or her opinion the loudest.

[Caid Ivik]

Evil can be considered in two views: lack of good, or abomination, product of a culture of evil, state when sin is so often, that it is considered as usual. First can be eliminated by good acts (that doesn't mean support, of course), second only by reeducation trough prison or better trough repantance.

[Scrinlord]

There will always be evil in the world, if only for the sake that Satan exists. There will always be temptation, we can cut the evil acts down, but I honostly don't think we can eliminate it.

[Caid Ivik]

Is there a Satan as you think about it? Isn't that temptation just a trace of that fruit of wisdom we've dared to eat?

In everyone, in whom will be destroyed that trace, will be evil eliminated. Yes, we can't say about mankind as whole, but every one person can be redeemed. Not saying that I'm not sure if we value Jesus' sacrifice enough as well, it is still to be revealed.

[Scrinlord]

Yes, I do believe that there is a Satan in his own right. I believe that the way that he shows himself to us now is not the same as it once was, and that he probably shows himself less in the form of an actual being, and more in the sense of a non-real temptation.

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was making the world believe he didn't exist"

-The Usual Suspects

[Caid Ivik]

Why do you think temptation is unreal? It can be a twist of soul, maybe from our darker submind (we all are a slight schizo...). I don't think there is need for a higher mastermind which makes it for today, altough I don't say it isn't the primary source.

[Scrinlord]

sorry, I didnt mean not real. The thought that I was thinking is not tangable. Not exactly something that you can put your finger on, even though it exists.

[Caid Ivik]

That's a big difference...

[Scrinlord]

ya I know. The word I was looking for slipped my mind when I was typing the first time. Sorry.