Do YOU believe in God?

[Satenza]

I have a couple questions. Why do the four gospels repeat a lot of the same events? And how come a lot of the events are described differently in the gospels (like Jesus saying something different after a particular event or something like that)?

 

 

 

Cos' there points of view of the disciples (apparently) and so different people recall the events slightly differently.

[Guest GhostRanger]

I have a couple questions. Why do the four gospels repeat a lot of the same events? And how come a lot of the events are described differently in the gospels (like Jesus saying something different after a particular event or something like that)?

 

 

 

Why do they repeat a lot of the same events? Because they are basically telling the same story from 4 different points of view. Why are some things described differently? What is written is not necessarily a verbatim quote that Jesus said - they weren't using tape recorders back then. The gospels are retelling a story for a very specific purpose, the small little differences are the result of the story being retold from different points of views - but the purpose and the happenings stay the same.

[masterdez]

The gospels are people talking about Jesus's life, from different perspectives. They are likely to be not fully correct; there wern't news reporters at his events taking notes, instead news travelled by word of mouth.

 

 

 

Events are repeated, because apparently the men who wrote the gospels were close in Jesus's life and were with him often.

[petey]

I Believe in God with my whole heart

 

 

 

And I believe that he died for us all and rose again.

 

 

 

got to the second post and see this...WOW, you must be a true believer and study it if you think Jesus is god...

 

 

 

personally ~ i dont believe in god, meh smite me to hell...I DARE YOU

[Guest GhostRanger]

I Believe in God with my whole heart

 

 

 

And I believe that he died for us all and rose again.

 

 

 

got to the second post and see this...WOW, you must be a true believer and study it if you think Jesus is god...

 

 

 

personally ~ i dont believe in god, meh smite me to hell...I DARE YOU

 

 

 

God and Jesus are both seperate AND the same.

[logic-is-overrated]

What is your opinion on the Bible being "divinely inspired?" (To any of the Christians in general)

 

 

 

This is what I'm getting at: I believe that Christianity is just like almost every other religion, if not all of them. It started in in a particular time period. Through the ages, the traditions, beliefs, stories, etc. were passed down and through the ages they changed (as almost everything does once it gets repeated through a variety of people over a period of time). I believe that is why there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible when referring to historical events (For example Ezra 2:3 and Neh. 7:8 when they describe the tribes that came back from captivity in Babylon and how they disagree as to the numbers involved in some clans and tribes). I also believe that is why the gospels have different accounts of the same event; one author is recording what he read or heard from somebody else.

 

 

 

If you (meaning any person who wishes to debate), do not consider the Bible to be "divinely inspired" or anything along those lines then ignore this. But if you do believe that, then where is the divine inspiration? It just seems to me that the infallible word of God would have some sort of consistency.

 

 

 

I'm not an expert in anything so if I'm way off base about anything then please let me know.

[Guest GhostRanger]

What is your opinion on the Bible being "divinely inspired?" (To any of the Christians in general)

 

 

 

This is what I'm getting at: I believe that Christianity is just like almost every other religion, if not all of them. It started in in a particular time period. Through the ages, the traditions, beliefs, stories, etc. were passed down and through the ages they changed (as almost everything does once it gets repeated through a variety of people over a period of time). I believe that is why there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible when referring to historical events (For example Ezra 2:3 and Neh. 7:8 when they describe the tribes that came back from captivity in Babylon and how they disagree as to the numbers involved in some clans and tribes). I also believe that is why the gospels have different accounts of the same event; one author is recording what he read or heard from somebody else.

 

 

 

If you (meaning any person who wishes to debate), do not consider the Bible to be "divinely inspired" or anything along those lines then ignore this. But if you do believe that, then where is the divine inspiration? It just seems to me that the infallible word of God would have some sort of consistency.

 

 

 

I'm not an expert in anything so if I'm way off base about anything then please let me know.

 

 

 

It's a topic that comes up a lot when discussing theology, particularly Christianity. And I don't think there's a right answer.

 

 

 

I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about what she thinks about the idea that our Bible was compiled by a bunch of people who very easily could be considered Pegans who converted so they wouldn't be killed. She said it worried her a lot, but she has enough faith that God that he was in control of it happening, even through the hands of non-believers. So that's the biggest thing about the idea of "divine inspiration" for me, at least. I just have faith that God's word is God's word.

 

 

 

As far as inconsitencies and such, I've never found them to be of signifigance. For instance, two different Gospels describe Jesus raising from the head slightly differently. One says there was one Angel at the cave, another says there were two. Does that really matter? It's not that the Bible is historically infallible, but the Bible is infallible as to it's words about the Lord.

 

 

 

Does that make sense? Even if it does, it's just my opinion and how I've come to it. Someone once asked me if I believed Jonah actually was swolloed by a whale and lived there for three days before being spit up, or if it was just a metaphor of some kind. I thought about it, and my answer was "Does it matter? Does it matter if Jonah really was swollowed by a whale or if it was just a way to describe him being lost from the Lord and he was swollowed by his selfishness/fear? What's the point of the story? What are we trying to accomplish with God's word? Are we trying to pin down miniscule details or are we trying to understand something greater?"

 

 

 

I don't know if I made sense...but my conclusion is that I have faith that the Bible is a tool to teach about the Lord, not a history book.

[pianofrieak2]

 

1. Atheism says 1 thing: No God (no creator, no higher being, no higher power, etc.)

 

2. If there is no Creator, then the mind was not created to be logical.

 

3. If your mind was not created logical, why assume it is?

 

4. Most assume it to be logical because it makes sense, but, then again, they never answer the why. Or the how for that matter.

 

5. Some try to argue for impulses, but, then again, that's a far cry from logical trains of thought.

 

6. Thus, no one has any reason to even assume the mind is logical, which unfortunately dictates that any train of thought from their mind to not be trusted to be logical...not really illogical but just not logical.

 

 

 

That's my point. Read it carefully please.

 

 

 

Okay, I read it carefully, but it still doesn't make sense. You're making this whole argument out of a word play with the word "created." There is

 

absolutely no reason why logic can only exist if a supernatural being created us. As death_by_pod said earlier - the premise of your argument, that a logical mind can only be created by the supernatural, has no basis. You've just assumed that point and that point is the premise of your argument.

 

 

 

Okay, I'll try and refragment his argument using one of my own, that may not be correct, but is interesting to think about.

 

 

 

Reductionism (or the general scientific community) has reduced all things to a bunch of atoms and electrons. Thus, a tree is a bunch of atoms, and so is thought - a bunch of atoms, or electrons. Why are we able to call thought logical, or true, and not a tree? Both are mere electron/atom patterns - according to science, the only difference is in their electronic makeup. But of course, it would be absurd to assign truth values to a tree, and it would be absurd to not assign truth values to a thought.

 

 

 

Ah, now I'm starting to follow.

 

 

 

So basically, we can't reduce thought to anything of this world. It's not like a tree where we can see what it's made of - it can't be reduced, so is it of another realm? Is that where you are going?

 

 

 

Ghost, I understand your point. But I still disagree.

 

 

 

Why do you think the mind is logical? The only way I see it being "logical" is if it was created in the image of a logical God. There's no reason to assume otherwise.

 

 

 

Insane brought up an off-shoot of my point, but the above paragraph is my whole point.

 

 

 

 

 

As for the many other topics, let me address the Bible's inerrancy.

 

1. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." This is the foundation for Sola Scriptura, the inerrancy of all Scripture.

 

2. I don't claim to know all about Hebrew custom, but from what I do know, when a rabbi picked a follower, that follower did EVERYTHING with the rabbi. They even followed them into the bathroom, so they wouldn't miss anything the rabbi said or did. Were there tape recorders? No, but they stuck to their rabbi like glue and they definately wrote down what he said. Verbatim. It's a part of their job, after all. Their job was to become the next Jesus or whoever their rabbi was.

 

3. The events were repeated because, d'oh, Jesus' followers were with him the entire time and saw whatever He did or said. They recorded it, so that they would act the same way if put in the same situation. Their different backgrounds (1 was a tax collector, another a doctor) enabled them to see the same event differently.

 

 

 

Can God create a rock so big He can't lift it?

 

Let me respond by asking you a question: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

 

 

 

You answer my question and I'll answer yours.

 

 

 

As far as God's commandments with him dying for forgiveness:

 

1. The Old Testament shows us how sinful we are. It is a list of rules designed to keep God's people in His ways, that is, doing the correct moral thing.

 

2. The New Testament shows us how wonderful God's grace is. The NT is about the MOTIVE, not the action as the OT shows. We are very sinful but even more so loved and forgiven.

 

 

 

imhomer:

 

 

 

1. God has no beginning and no end. Any being that created God would have to be greater than God. Since there is no being greater than God, God has no creation. He has always existed and will always exist since nothing can destroy God.

 

2. Christians cannot be "tolerant" of others simply because God says that those who do not believe in Him as one's Savior is condemned with no forgiveness.

 

3. Just because you haven't seen a miracle doesn't mean they don't happen. I, personally, have seen miracles. Besides, He did when Jesus was here too. Just read the Bible.

 

4. God does not punish us. He simply lets us have our own consequences. Yes, everything good is God's benevolence.

 

5. God's predestination and foreknowledge are two different things.

[logic-is-overrated]

It's a topic that comes up a lot when discussing theology, particularly Christianity. And I don't think there's a right answer.

 

 

 

I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about what she thinks about the idea that our Bible was compiled by a bunch of people who very easily could be considered Pegans who converted so they wouldn't be killed. She said it worried her a lot, but she has enough faith that God that he was in control of it happening, even through the hands of non-believers. So that's the biggest thing about the idea of "divine inspiration" for me, at least. I just have faith that God's word is God's word.

 

 

 

As far as inconsitencies and such, I've never found them to be of signifigance. For instance, two different Gospels describe Jesus raising from the head slightly differently. One says there was one Angel at the cave, another says there were two. Does that really matter? It's not that the Bible is historically infallible, but the Bible is infallible as to it's words about the Lord.

 

 

 

Does that make sense? Even if it does, it's just my opinion and how I've come to it. Someone once asked me if I believed Jonah actually was swolloed by a whale and lived there for three days before being spit up, or if it was just a metaphor of some kind. I thought about it, and my answer was "Does it matter? Does it matter if Jonah really was swollowed by a whale or if it was just a way to describe him being lost from the Lord and he was swollowed by his selfishness/fear? What's the point of the story? What are we trying to accomplish with God's word? Are we trying to pin down miniscule details or are we trying to understand something greater?"

First off, I hope you don't think I'm "attacking" christianity. As someone who has recently turned from being a christian to being an atheist in that last 2 or 3 months, I really am trying to learn something.

 

 

 

I don't know if I made sense...but my conclusion is that I have faith that the Bible is a tool to teach about the Lord, not a history book.

It makes sense to me and I respect that.

 

 

 

My real point/question/problem is this:

 

What are we trying to accomplish with God's word?

How do we know it's God's word? The more I search the more I find that it gets harder and harder to believe it actually is. The more I research the more I find apologetics and Christian authors recycling the same sources over and over, recycling the same arguments over and over and either never making any kind of counter argument to the criticisms that arise or make very weak ones. For every shred of evidence that I find to support some claim of christianity I find 20 to support otherwise. I know that every religion requires some leap of faith. But if that leap of faith has no grounding in any kind of verifiable evidence then why make it? Since I've only been reading/researching for a couple months I'm sure there's a billion websites, books, whatever that contradict everything I say and I'd be glad to look at/read some of them.

[Guest GhostRanger]

It's a topic that comes up a lot when discussing theology, particularly Christianity. And I don't think there's a right answer.

 

 

 

I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about what she thinks about the idea that our Bible was compiled by a bunch of people who very easily could be considered Pegans who converted so they wouldn't be killed. She said it worried her a lot, but she has enough faith that God that he was in control of it happening, even through the hands of non-believers. So that's the biggest thing about the idea of "divine inspiration" for me, at least. I just have faith that God's word is God's word.

 

 

 

As far as inconsitencies and such, I've never found them to be of signifigance. For instance, two different Gospels describe Jesus raising from the head slightly differently. One says there was one Angel at the cave, another says there were two. Does that really matter? It's not that the Bible is historically infallible, but the Bible is infallible as to it's words about the Lord.

 

 

 

Does that make sense? Even if it does, it's just my opinion and how I've come to it. Someone once asked me if I believed Jonah actually was swolloed by a whale and lived there for three days before being spit up, or if it was just a metaphor of some kind. I thought about it, and my answer was "Does it matter? Does it matter if Jonah really was swollowed by a whale or if it was just a way to describe him being lost from the Lord and he was swollowed by his selfishness/fear? What's the point of the story? What are we trying to accomplish with God's word? Are we trying to pin down miniscule details or are we trying to understand something greater?"

First off, I hope you don't think I'm "attacking" christianity. As someone who has recently turned from being a christian to being an atheist in that last 2 or 3 months, I really am trying to learn something.

 

 

 

I don't know if I made sense...but my conclusion is that I have faith that the Bible is a tool to teach about the Lord, not a history book.

It makes sense to me and I respect that.

 

 

 

My real point/question/problem is this:

 

What are we trying to accomplish with God's word?

How do we know it's God's word? The more I search the more I find that it gets harder and harder to believe it actually is. The more I research the more I find apologetics and Christian authors recycling the same sources over and over, recycling the same arguments over and over and either never making any kind of counter argument to the criticisms that arise or make very weak ones. For every shred of evidence that I find to support some claim of christianity I find 20 to support otherwise. I know that every religion requires some leap of faith. But if that leap of faith has no grounding in any kind of verifiable evidence then why make it? Since I've only been reading/researching for a couple months I'm sure there's a billion websites, books, whatever that contradict everything I say and I'd be glad to look at/read some of them.

 

 

 

First and foremost, I got the since you weren't attacking Christianity which is why I posted such a long response (you might notice I don't post very long responses in this thread anymore). It was refreshing to see someone who isn't out to "prove me wrong" but out to have me defend my faith. Because that's what it's about. It's not about figuring out how to prove Christianity wrong, because you can't do that anymore than you can prove it right. You seem to understand that, so thank you.

 

 

 

Which brings me to my question. You want some type of verifiable data - it's a very Western way of thinking and makes sense. My question is - what kind of data? What evidence are you searching for that you find contradictions to?

[logic-is-overrated]

Which brings me to my question. You want some type of verifiable data - it's a very Western way of thinking and makes sense. My question is - what kind of data? What evidence are you searching for that you find contradictions to?

What I want to know, is why are you (or anybody else) a christian? What I seem to find is that most christians I know were either 1)brought up in the faith as children, 2)needed something to hang on to, found christianity and then look at everything after that through a christian lense completely ignoring contrary evidence or 3) some other reason that isn't founded on a thorough thought process. What I don't find, is somebody who looked at both sides of the argument, compared the evidence for the two sides and then are able to say to themselves: "I have looked, researched, compared, etc. and have now come to the conclusion that the christian belief system holds water."

 

 

 

Let me now explain what I mean by evidence. I don't consider internal, personal experiences to be evidence. I used to be a christian. I used to get those "experiences" in church (the moments where it feels like the Lord is talking to your heart and things like that). But I've had the same kind of euphoric moments in other positive, uplifiting situations surrounded by people that I care for. The other reasons being most people who have those "experiences" are already solidly grounded in their faith and routinely convince themselves that the evidence supports their beliefs (such as convincing themselves that anything they feel during church, or any other time for that matter, is due to God and not to anything else). And the other reason is pretty obvious: personal feelings can't be proved to anybody else besides the person experiencing them.

 

 

 

I also don't consider the Bible to be evidence. As you've agreed with, the Bible is not a history book and I believe its supernatural elements require faith at the least.

 

 

 

What I want to know is why should I, the layman, accept christianity as true and not any other religion, or not any religion at all? Archeaological, historical, scientific, etc. Like I said before, all religion requires a leap of faith. What I want to know is why should anybody make that leap of faith?

 

When I read websites like this http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm and read books like J.A. Robertsons Christianity and Mythology, and T.W. Doane's Bible Myths and Their Paralles in other Religions, and countless other books and websites, I continuously fail to see what separates christianity from any other religion. And when I try to find the christian answer to this, the best I find is a few websites with sparse evidence or jokes like Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell.

[Death_By_Pod]

 

The supernatural realm MUST be able to interact with the natural because...voila...it created it.

 

 

 

 

Not necessarily. When you analyse a lot of dynamical systems there are certain values when abrupt changes to behaviour occur. Something that was once stable can become unstable, and that the same point a new stable branch can form. The two systems donâââ‰â¢t interact at the bifurcation point since one is stable and the other is unstable.

 

Taken from the bifurcation theory page on wikipedia:

 

âââ¬ÃâIn mathematics, specifically in the study of dynamical systems, a bifurcation occurs when a small smooth change made to the parameter values (the bifurcation parameters) of a system causes a sudden 'qualitative' or topological change in the system's long-term dynamical behaviour. Bifurcations can occur in continuous systems (described by ODEs, DDEs or PDEs), and discrete systems (described by maps).âââ¬Ã

[Death_By_Pod]

 

Okay, I'll try and refragment his argument using one of my own, that may not be correct, but is interesting to think about.

 

 

 

Reductionism (or the general scientific community) has reduced all things to a bunch of atoms and electrons. Thus, a tree is a bunch of atoms, and so is thought - a bunch of atoms, or electrons. Why are we able to call thought logical, or true, and not a tree? Both are mere electron/atom patterns - according to science, the only difference is in their electronic makeup. But of course, it would be absurd to assign truth values to a tree, and it would be absurd to not assign truth values to a thought.

 

 

 

Reductionism isnâââ‰â¢t exactly about reducing things to atoms. Itâââ‰â¢s about reducing the number of constituent parts of the universe. Without atoms we would need a separate theory to describe the properties of trees and thoughts. Since we know about atoms, we know that they are made up of the same things, so their intrinsic properties are the same (they abide by the same laws of physics).

 

 

 

What makes something a tree or a thought isnâââ‰â¢t their individual properties, itâââ‰â¢s the overall structure of the atoms/electron configuration, reductionism explains why they both abide by the same laws of physics. The way atoms are configured determine their use to us, we might need something non polar, something compact, something highly exothermic etc. Reductionism explains why something is non-polar or exothermic, not why we need these properties in a system.

 

 

 

The more we reduce things the greater the redundancy in our work. Sure we could describe the motion of someone jogging as the exchange of electrons between atoms but that creates a lot of redundant calculations (so many in fact that, supercomputers would spend hundreds of years doing them). So instead we calculate the interactions of a single ATP (which still takes many computer years to do) and since we know all ATP is the same we donâââ‰â¢t need to calculate the rest. Then we see how ATP interacts with other large molecules to make us jog.

 

 

 

In many cases (such as the one above) things donâââ‰â¢t need to be described by individual atoms since the effects of atomic behaviour are many orders of magnitudes smaller then the overall effect. This applies to everyday things (since they are much bigger then atoms) so the idea that trees and thoughts are made of the same atoms seems foreign because we donâââ‰â¢t see atomic influences, we see the overall influence (the sum total of atomic influences).

[FuBai]

I Believe in God with my whole heart

 

 

 

And I believe that he died for us all and rose again.

 

 

 

got to the second post and see this...WOW, you must be a true believer and study it if you think Jesus is god...

 

 

 

personally ~ i dont believe in god, meh smite me to hell...I DARE YOU

 

 

 

God and Jesus are both seperate AND the same.

 

 

 

the trinitarian answer states that whilst God, the Son and The Holy ghost are indivdual, they are also all one - three facets of the same object.

[zelot]

i do believe in god...yet i dont...to some extent i believe in jesus as well but then again i dont...there are some things in the bible that i find "extreme" as to living life...i mean really i think that if u live ur life doing well n doing good n not giving in to the "wrong" path i dont think u will be condemned to hell jus becuz of certain beliefs u have towards god...also i think in the bible it says that if u ask god for forgiveness even at the last minute of ur life u can be forgiven for the wrong things u do...wouldnt that defeat the purpose of living ur life as a good person?...honestly i do believe there is somewhat of a god but im not sure how much of our interpretion of god is really true...there is one thing that i know for sure...there is good and evil in the world...but that opens another whole nother view of wats good n evil...but lets not get into that :lol: ....

 

 

 

 

 

~ZeLoT~

[Satenza]

 

 

 

Can God create a rock so big He can't lift it?

 

Let me respond by asking you a question: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

 

 

 

You answer my question and I'll answer yours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not have a wife, your turn.

 

 

 

The argument saying that it's not right to assume you do not have a logical mind if your an atheist i disagree with. A supernatural power must have created us for us to have a logical mind? I do not think so, logic too is somewhat man created, through the use of maths and such.

 

 

 

So your argument is that a logical mind must come from a logical God. Lets take a few examples of the christian God. Jesus is both God and seperate ( :? ), God is limited by definition contradiction his limitless powers ( :? ) and for those fundemental christians, God is all loving yet through many times in the Bible he encourages sacrifices and wars in his name. :?

 

 

 

Logical and God do not go together, thats my opinion of it anyway.

 

 

 

1. Atheism says 1 thing: No God (no creator, no higher being, no higher power, etc.)

 

2. If there is no Creator, then the mind was not created to be logical.

 

3. If your mind was not created logical, why assume it is?

 

4. Most assume it to be logical because it makes sense, but, then again, they never answer the why. Or the how for that matter.

 

5. Some try to argue for impulses, but, then again, that's a far cry from logical trains of thought.

 

6. Thus, no one has any reason to even assume the mind is logical, which unfortunately dictates that any train of thought from their mind to not be trusted to be logical...not really illogical but just not logical.

 

 

 

Step 2 of your argument is saying if the mind was not created, then the mind was not created. However saying that if the minds not created we can't not assume it to be ilogical makes no sense. It has every chance to be logical by experience of what we see as a logical universe.

 

 

 

Step 3 is going either way. You should have concluded that EITHER your mind is logical and therefore it has been created by God (who by definition is ilogical btw). OR the mind is logical and logic is gained by experience.

 

 

 

You have a very one sided argument.

[imhomer]

5. God's predestination and foreknowledge are two different things.

 

 

 

OK I think I know where you are coming from. You're saying that God already knows what's going to happen but he hasn't decided what he's going to do with us yet. That's the difference between foreknowledge and predestination.

 

 

 

However, if God knows what's going to happen in the future, then doesn't he know what he's going to decide?

[king_dharok]

i dont believe in god, but i used to.

 

 

 

Once i started thinking about this all, and the bible, and i discovered that it CANT be true that god actually exists.

 

 

 

but why?

 

 

 

- i learnt that in the very past, storys were told from father to son, from son to his son.

 

if this happened 100s of years, the story got changed, because some people liked to make the story cooler, and add some very exiting parts.

 

and his children? they believed it!!

 

 

 

then somebody decided to write those story in a book, ( other people did that too ) and later those books were put together, called the BIBLE.

 

 

 

- why would i believe 1 single book? okay, this book is the proof for many people to believe... but not for me.

 

what really has been prooved is the science, they have actually proven things, so i believe it.

 

 

 

god doesnt let a tree grow, the nature does

 

children will not be made by god, the nature does.

 

 

 

but 2500 years ago, nobody knew how a tree actually could grow, so they simply said: GOD DOES IT!

 

 

 

- many more reasons, but i dont like to tell them now

[pianofrieak2]

logic, I would recommend "New Evidence That Demands A Verdict" by Josh McDowell. Or, since you have a Christian background, try "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis.

 

 

 

Now the C.S. Lewis one really isn't an apologetic book, but it sure helps Christians in their search for God.

 

 

 

Now I don't know how philosophical or understanding of really tough arguments is, because Mere Christianity took me a LONG time to actually read it. I kept re-reading it lol. But you might be able to understand it on the first time.

 

 

 

As for the Bible being the divinely-inspired word of God, I would have to part ways with Ghost and argue that all of it (historical, metaphysical, prophecy, etc.) are true and are infallible. The parts in the NT, like where Jesus says "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" must be taken figuratively.

 

 

 

That's kinda my view. It's all literal unless the literal doesn't make sense so make it figurative. :) Revelation is opposite?

 

 

 

And I'm glad to see you're searching. That's great!

 

 

 

Oh, and about that question with God and the rock:

 

I do not have a wife

 

 

 

Sorry that's not an answer to the question. You must answer yes or no, just like you are demanding of me. When you do, then get back to me.

[pianofrieak2]

Satenza, I never said that God is not limited. He can't sin, for that goes against His nature. Thus, God is limited by Himself. But He's not limited in the rock example because that is a baited question. It has no "yes or no" answer.

 

 

 

Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all part of God. Without one of them, "God" is incomplete. They all make up God.

 

 

 

How is God loving if He allows wars in His name? Well, His people were the only ones to follow after Him, and they were surrounded by enemies. Now would you rather have your people slaughtered or defend them against their enemies? Besides, the "enemies" as I call them had the good land which God wanted to leave as an inheritance for His people. A way of them to remember Him. It's called Jericho, Ai, and the 10 Amorite kings. They were destroyed for Israel to have their wonderful land.

 

 

 

Perhaps you understand now?

 

 

 

And anyway, it wasn't like Israel was going to take their stuff. Actually, they burned everything. All of the cattle were killed, the gold was burned, and they even killed the women and children. God wanted Israel to be pure and not intermingle with the sinful tribes outside.

 

 

 

 

 

And back to the one who is searching: Salvation comes to all different ways except through Christianity. Have you found out how Christianity is different yet? :)

[buffyboy17]

i beleive in god, im christian, i beleive after death ill be joined with the ones i love and live for eternity

[fishy227]

Ibelive but i respect other's opions :wink:

[Ragen]

I am Christian, I believe in God and the Afterlife but I do not believe the Bible stories. I take them as metaphors on how your life should be lived not as facts. The only story I do not doubt is the tale of Jesus and the resurrecton. I don't know why but to me it rings true. Science can throw anything they want at the story, I will still believe.

[Astralinre]

'Can God create a rock so heavy he himself can not lift it?'

 

 

 

God is omnipotent, meaning that He can do all things which are intrinsically possible. It follows that He cannot do those things which are intrinsically contradictory, nonsensical, or otherwise impossible. Non-sense is non-sense, even if you put the words "God can" in front of it.

[kevinfangs]

'Can God create a rock so heavy he himself can not lift it?'

 

 

 

God is omnipotent, meaning that He can do all things which are intrinsically possible. It follows that He cannot do those things which are intrinsically contradictory, nonsensical, or otherwise impossible. Non-sense is non-sense, even if you put the words "God can" in front of it.

 

 

 

Exactly. Contradictions are just pieces of garbage that non-christians throw at us to challenge our mental beliefs.

 

 

 

I am Christian. I believe in God, and perfection in spirit is what I long to have.