andrewlittle
04-01-2007, 11:12 PM
Responding to Djangojava from this post.
http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showpost.php?p=24193&postcount=25
The problem I have is when people start telling me I'm intolerant and that I have or believe a message of hate. Or that they know God and then they just make up crap. I've chosen to believe God and take Him at His Word.
Aren't you all just making up God? Aren't you just saying stuff? What is the basis of your belief?
What has God told you - shown you - revealed to you? And God as "Him" - is that complete with the physical attributes male humans have. If so, is that not idolatry - visioning God in your own image?
We all "make up" God - because we cannot have a direct, absolute knowledge of God. We each chose what basis we use for the understanding we can have, and pray that we don't turn our understanding into a graven image. So we understand God in terms of what we can grasp.
So to your questions - No! No! I am a Christian who believes that the Scripture reveals God incompletely to humans, because we cannot conceive of the immensity of God's being in toto. I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I also believe I am being a bit of jack-ass for even answering your questions - who are you to ask me to qualify my beliefs. What makes you the arbiter of who is and who isn't a Christian?
Jesus Christ did exist and you have only 3 choices. 1) He was a well intended madman, a lunatic, and simply must be written off as such. 2) He was a cruel liar and led generatios to their death and his legacy continues to lead his followers in other countries to death. Christians are still persecuted and killed. 3) He was who he said he was.
You left out quite a few - did I say few - a lot of other possibilities. But, no matter - I believe Jesus is who he said he is.
It's an interesting, and not unusual, argument style. Two absolutely moronic options (from your perspective) and a third that you believe to be correct. There are a myriad possibilities of who people think Christ is (I prefer that to the past tense, BTW). Lousy rhetoric reflects poorly on the user, not the person answering.
I've chosen option 3 ...
boy, I didn't see that coming.
...and I don't have the luxury of making up God out of my imagination.
So you have seen God, touched God, have physical evidence of God, do you? Pray tell, what does God look like, feel like, smell like? How tall? How wide?
Faith takes imagination. No imagination leaves one only believing in the physical reality around them. Is what you are really saying that you don't use your own imagination to envision God, but rely solely on the imagination of someone else?
We really don't have a basis upon which to talk. I hold to Scripture and you don't.
Wild assumption.
But don't tell me that what Jesus Christ does and doesn't do. When is the last time you studied what he said? Do you hold your thoughts captive to Him or do you bend him to your convienance.
I study it daily. I spent five years full-time studying it.
True Biblical Christianity is very inconvienant.
True Biblical Christianity - why don't you define that for us. There is no such thing as Biblical "Christianity" - I am surprised an Inerrantist doesn't know that. The word is not in the Bible. It is a later construct. Put it all together and it is an oxymoron.
Believe what you want about Scripture, that it's just made up... that man is a poor conduit... I've chosen to believe that the God who could raise Lazarus from the dead, make a universe, and create man, the space & time... I've chosen to believe that God knows a few more things than I do and I don't have to understand what he says. I'm better off obeying those things that are clear in Scripture rather than re-writing scripture.
Just don't call yourself a Christian or claim you know Christ that's all.
The druidic buddhist... yeah whatever. It's like the old asian menus one from column A one from column B... what are the odds of that being true?
Truth by it's very nature is absolute and it may not be understood but it can be accepted by faith and even that faith is a gift of God. May He reveal Himself to you.
As for the rest of this - I am sure glad you didn't come here intolerant or hate filled. You might have said something intolerant or hateful, otherwise.
http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showpost.php?p=24193&postcount=25
The problem I have is when people start telling me I'm intolerant and that I have or believe a message of hate. Or that they know God and then they just make up crap. I've chosen to believe God and take Him at His Word.
Aren't you all just making up God? Aren't you just saying stuff? What is the basis of your belief?
What has God told you - shown you - revealed to you? And God as "Him" - is that complete with the physical attributes male humans have. If so, is that not idolatry - visioning God in your own image?
We all "make up" God - because we cannot have a direct, absolute knowledge of God. We each chose what basis we use for the understanding we can have, and pray that we don't turn our understanding into a graven image. So we understand God in terms of what we can grasp.
So to your questions - No! No! I am a Christian who believes that the Scripture reveals God incompletely to humans, because we cannot conceive of the immensity of God's being in toto. I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I also believe I am being a bit of jack-ass for even answering your questions - who are you to ask me to qualify my beliefs. What makes you the arbiter of who is and who isn't a Christian?
Jesus Christ did exist and you have only 3 choices. 1) He was a well intended madman, a lunatic, and simply must be written off as such. 2) He was a cruel liar and led generatios to their death and his legacy continues to lead his followers in other countries to death. Christians are still persecuted and killed. 3) He was who he said he was.
You left out quite a few - did I say few - a lot of other possibilities. But, no matter - I believe Jesus is who he said he is.
It's an interesting, and not unusual, argument style. Two absolutely moronic options (from your perspective) and a third that you believe to be correct. There are a myriad possibilities of who people think Christ is (I prefer that to the past tense, BTW). Lousy rhetoric reflects poorly on the user, not the person answering.
I've chosen option 3 ...
boy, I didn't see that coming.
...and I don't have the luxury of making up God out of my imagination.
So you have seen God, touched God, have physical evidence of God, do you? Pray tell, what does God look like, feel like, smell like? How tall? How wide?
Faith takes imagination. No imagination leaves one only believing in the physical reality around them. Is what you are really saying that you don't use your own imagination to envision God, but rely solely on the imagination of someone else?
We really don't have a basis upon which to talk. I hold to Scripture and you don't.
Wild assumption.
But don't tell me that what Jesus Christ does and doesn't do. When is the last time you studied what he said? Do you hold your thoughts captive to Him or do you bend him to your convienance.
I study it daily. I spent five years full-time studying it.
True Biblical Christianity is very inconvienant.
True Biblical Christianity - why don't you define that for us. There is no such thing as Biblical "Christianity" - I am surprised an Inerrantist doesn't know that. The word is not in the Bible. It is a later construct. Put it all together and it is an oxymoron.
Believe what you want about Scripture, that it's just made up... that man is a poor conduit... I've chosen to believe that the God who could raise Lazarus from the dead, make a universe, and create man, the space & time... I've chosen to believe that God knows a few more things than I do and I don't have to understand what he says. I'm better off obeying those things that are clear in Scripture rather than re-writing scripture.
Just don't call yourself a Christian or claim you know Christ that's all.
The druidic buddhist... yeah whatever. It's like the old asian menus one from column A one from column B... what are the odds of that being true?
Truth by it's very nature is absolute and it may not be understood but it can be accepted by faith and even that faith is a gift of God. May He reveal Himself to you.
As for the rest of this - I am sure glad you didn't come here intolerant or hate filled. You might have said something intolerant or hateful, otherwise.