God refers to us in the Bible as His children. Growing up, we can all remember the many times that we thought we had it all figured out. Even the most intelligent person on the planet is still a child, to God. We are not meant to know yet the secret things which "belongeth" to Him. I know we don't want to hear this due to the fact that we have become so in love with ourselves and proud of our newfound knowledge that any type of humility to anything/one is just unacceptable. I think if we start looking at our children through the eyes of God, we will see ourselves as God sees us. As a growing child that we created in our image and that child is trying so hard to be like us, but we know that child just does'nt understand yet and is not ready to have some things explained to him. It is not easy to teach a child to have faith in you. It is not easy to convince him that you won't let him fall or that it's just thunder or that you love him with everything in you even though you are punishing him.
I think to say that you don't believe in God because there is no proof is to say that you don't believe in love. You can't prove/disprove love. Therefore we should hang that nonsense as well, right? Go tell your mom/dad/signifigent other/etc. that you don't believe they love you because they cannot physically prove it.
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Originally Posted by lucifer_sam
Also, to note: nowhere in the Bible are pearly gates mentioned. In fact, the Bible doesn't seem to quantify afterlife by any worldy means. It just refers to the afterlife as unity with God, which can be interpreted in many, many ways. The point is, even Christians aren't offered a utopia.
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What Bible were you reading?
John 14:
2 In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you...
Revelation 21:
15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. 16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. 17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. 18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. 19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; 20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
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Originally Posted by right-track
Maybe so, but for once I find myself agreeing with Darkest Hour. The first sentence is of course a stupidly sweeping statement, but the second is accurate. Anyone who takes, not only the bible, but any religious book literally, should be tied up in a sack and beaten mercilessly with baseball bats.
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Now who's saying "Believe what I believe or die"? You sound like one of those religious zealot types, only
non. To reiterate Neopolitan, I'd be wiiling to bet that the majority of the non-believers in this forum have not read a Bible since the last time they fell asleep in church Easter Sunday umpteen years ago. How does one base his faith on a subject he's never studied? I'm not talking about reading it to pull out all the arguable pieces, but really studied it. We are talking about your eternal soul, maybe, right? You don't think that if it
does exist it would be worth spending the time to find out for really real? What do you say to God (if he exists) and asks why you had so many years on the earth to study
Nietzsche, Kierkeguaard, Marx, Pascal, Darwin, etc. but not
Matthew, Mark, Luke or John?
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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
Well it can certainly be noted that it's always the violent, self-righteous, finger wagging, destructive actions of the narrow-minded, (as opposed to spiritual) distinctly religious fundamentalists the stick out in the mind of those formulating opinions on a particular religion or on religion in general. It's unfortunate and ironic that the most zealous members of a particular religion are the ones that often do their cause more harm than good and poorly represent what it means to have a spiritual relationship with a "higher power"m and while it's true that history is riddled with violence in the name of religion, I fail to see why this is always a go to for atheists and the like when the amount of charity and general good will that religious organizations have contributed in times of crisis grossly outweigh examples of violence and religious extremism. There will always be wacko extremists in western religion, but they are the outspoken minority, the exception not the rule.
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Well put, Satch. You should'nt let the crackpots take the focus away from the true meaning. Which is others before self.
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