Gay Marriage

[James]

I don't understand your golden leaf comment... but putting that aside...

I do bring something to the table, it is called faith, something which is greatly lacking today. Faith in what? In myself? No. In other people? No. In idols? Of course not. I have faith in the only being worthy of it. The Lord Jesus.

Perhaps if you knew my life story you would see things a bit differently, so allow me to share some little known things about me:

First off, according to medical science, I wasn't even supposed to live: I was born very premature, and I had to immediately be put in an incubator for several months. The head nurse asked my parents if they wanted to kill me, because it was the humane thing to do she said.

I was given an absolute zero-percent chance to live through the very first night, but God had other plans for me

Throuout my life so far, he has saved my life more times than I can count:

-I have slipped in the shower severeal times
-fallen down many flights of stairs
-fallen out of a truck when I was five
-been electrocuted twice
-had a ceiling fan (that was spinning) fall down on my desk (I was outside at the time)
-Had a lightbulb suspended above my head explode
- I have been hit in the head more times than I can count; by fists and other objects.

All of that without sustaining even a superficial injury.

The Lord looks out for me and protects me, and guides me every single day.

You want proof of God? I am the proof.

 

[Eon]

Whilst I respect your right to hold you own opinion on this matter, I'm afraid it'll never be more than that. Your survival, unlikely as it might have seemed, merely proves that there is no such thing as 100% or 0% in this life. Ask the guy in WWII who bailed out of his spitfire with no parachute and survived a 20K foot plummet.

Faith is NOT rare today, but blind faith is becoming more so. You are attempting to defend the indefensible - there is no PROOF for ANY religion.

 

[James]

Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 09 2004,8:11)]100% or 0% in this life. Ask the guy in WWII who bailed out of his spitfire with no parachute and survived a 20K foot plummet.

....

Faith is NOT rare today, but blind faith is becoming more so. You are attempting to defend the indefensible - there is no PROOF for ANY religion.

Yes why don't you indeed ask that guy... He will profess to you his faith in God.

And you are now doing what you accuse me of, stating your opinions as fact. Just because you blind yourself to the reality of God doesn't mean He isn't real.

Faith is very rare, and you'll forgive me for saying so, but your attitude is proof of it. You won't accept anything beyond what your eyes can see, at least that is the case you are making to me on this forum.

I have shared with you the miracles the Lord has performed for me, and you still can't accept the reality of God. Either you think I am lying, or you are trying to pawn it off as coincidence, luck or fate.

 

[Whitestone]

Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 09 2004,8:11)]Faith is NOT rare today, but blind faith is becoming more so. You are attempting to defend the indefensible - there is no PROOF for ANY religion.

Faith has to be blind and unconditional, if we tried to understand everthing God was doing in our lives we would be lost.

As for proving religion exist, can you prove that it doesn't. This is all part of God's plan. If God's existence was proven by science leaving no doubt, I bet most people would turn to Him out of fear of His wrath. I can not remember the verse but God said there would always be a choice, if He took away that choice then we would become slaves not children.

 

[Eon]

I am not stating my opinion as fact - I am stating what I believe to be a fact as a fact. I'm sure you feel the same - the difference of course is that MY mind is open to new evidence, and I'm willing to entertain the remote possibility that you might be correct.

There is NO compelling physical or scientific proof in favour of a fundamentalist approach to Christianity. The same goes for Buddhism, Islam, Shintoism, Confuscianism, Taoism, The Moonies, The Raellians and even my own faith, Asatruism. Religion is metaphor.

By definition, Science plays the game by its own rules. People and/or books are not considered infalliable unless their arguments can be backed by Empirical fact. Whitestone, above, is telling us that God conceals that fact due to his ineffable plan. Essentially, according to this concept, God has made it impossible to prove or disprove his religion - in order that you can't simply weigh up the FACTS and choose that way. You have to feel the call, and make a leap of faith.

I'm quite happy to believe in what my eyes can't see - Science requires that of you, but what I'm not happy to believe in is something that contradicts other things that I believe have been proven factually.

As to the rest of your spiel on choice, Whitestone, come and play in our thread on predestination for a more thorough answer.

 

[4t0p]

Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 09 2004,8:11)]Ask the guy in WWII who bailed out of his spitfire with no parachute and survived a 20K foot plummet.

who is this that fell 5 miles to earth and survived I should like a name plz ~ yes i realize this has nothing to do with the topic =o

 

[Eon]

Not sure - I've had a scout about and no luck, but there are a number of stories of this type. Some bomber chap had a very similar escape during WWII.

 

[Atown]

ok quick question eon, why do u believe in asatruism?? why have blind faith in it? just wondering

 

[Eon]

I don't - short answer. I have qualified faith. It's taken me awhile to get here, and it's been a journey of a thousand steps. My faith is more like trust, I suppose. It's been earned up to a point.

 

[Atown]

quilified faith?? interesting term.

Quote[/b] ]It's been earned up to a point.

hmmm. earned... noticed how that works with every religion cept Christianity??

 

[Eon]

Yes, actually, I have. It's one of the reasons i mistrust Christianity.

 

[Whitestone]

Eon is it that you can not work your way into heaven that makes you mistrust Christianity? If so please explain why.

 

[Eon]

It's not that I can't work my way into heaven, it's the following central tenets, when taken as a whole.

1. I'm worthless and hopelessly corrupted Vs. The whole world exists merely to give me a place to stand while I decide whether to follow God.

2. I have freewill Vs. No human is without sin.

3. God is perfect Vs. God created humanity (who according to the bible are horribly flawed).


Add those three key pardoxi to the whole issue of my actual worth not being an issue (better a rapist who comes to God at the end than the most humane Buddhist) and you end up with a Religion that I don't feel particularly relevant to (or vice versa).

 

[Kidan]

1) Even in your religion, humans are weak, corrupted, selfish creatures. It's when they take a stand against their innate natures that they are rewarded.

2) sin is a byproduct of freewill. If we truly have the ability to make decisions for ourselves, then we have the ability to make the wrong ones. But again, it also falls into the fact that we are innately selfish creatures.

3) Yes God is perfect. Yet He knew that to give us free will, He had to make us imperfectly. For us to have free will, we HAVE to have the option to sin. Without it, there exists no free will. IF Adam and Eve had not been given something that they could not do, would they have been given free will? If everything you do is the right thing, you're not really making a decision. It's when you have to make a decision that free will rears itself. When we decide between right and wrong, or even better, when we decide between bad and worse.

 

[Avesther]

Quote[/b] ]1. I'm worthless and hopelessly corrupted Vs. The whole world exists merely to give me a place to stand while I decide whether to follow God.

Even religions where there is no God (Budhism or Raelian) believe that we are somehow out of sync with our enviroment.  This really is not a pardox limited to Christianity, it is prevalant throughout all human thought.  By your own logic, you shouldn't also trust in your own religion.

But then, this is not really a paradox, its really a thought up excuse to not believe in Christianity specifically.

 

[Grand Master]

Quote[/b] ]If everything you do is the right thing, you're not really making a decision.

So then are you saying that god has no free will? Your reasoning suggests that you are, since you believe god can do no wrong.

 

[Avesther]

Quote[/b] ]So then are you saying that god has no free will?

God is above freewill.

 

[Kidan]

Quote[/b] (Grand Master @ Feb. 19 2004,4:26)]

Quote[/b] ]If everything you do is the right thing, you're not really making a decision.

So then are you saying that god has no free will? Your reasoning suggests that you are, since you believe god can do no wrong.

Why? God has repented of His decisions before. God's perfection, does not mean that He has no free will.


Rather, His decisions are on a different scale than ours. The people of Ninevah (I think, it's late an I don't have my Bible next to me) repented of their sins, so God repented of His decision to destroy them.


But from a certain pov you are correct. Because you can count that God will uphold His promises. Not always in the way we expect, but if His Word says it, He will uphold it. While He can make/change His decisions, He has limited Himself for us, so that we KNOW that we can place our trust in Him.

 

[Guest]

Gods_Peon:"Even religions where there is no God (Budhism or Raelian) believe that we are somehow out of sync with our enviroment. This really is not a pardox limited to Christianity, it is prevalant throughout all human thought. By your own logic, you shouldn't also trust in your own religion."

Just because there is a contradiction common among many religions does not make it any less paradoxical and illogical.

 

[Eon]

I don't believe we are out of synch with our environment, and neither do a lot of the pagan and heathen religions! To those who say that Asatruism suggests we are flawed and useless unless we raise ourselves higher than our promise with acts of courage - you mustn't forget that this courage is ALSO part of our nature.

Part of your religions problem is that it's too quick to ascribe everything negative to "human nature" and everything positive as "god inspired".