jcgadfly wrote:

As promised, I'm getting back to you.

I'm not going to get into your projection of mischaracterizations except to say "Stop it - it's hypocritical of you. You're better than this".

We do have a different picture of human beings, this is true. I picture humans as free creatures "fearfully and wonderfully made". capable of doing great things. You picture them as little more than drones existing for God's amusement. You believe that they are worth nothing without a servile relationship to God. As for the fragility of the body, I agree. I look at it as an opportunity to do all I can with what I have. You seem to look at it as a thing to loathe, waiting for it to go away so you can go to heaven.

Why is my picture more Biblical than yours?

So, you're mistaking my honest concern for another human as mere irony? I should be ticked off at that but I also should have expected it. Newsflash - "obvious exaggeration" of terms of friendship implies insincerity.

As for your Jonah comparison, do you remember why he went to Nineveh? Yes it was to preach but it was also to watch people die when God's judgment fell upon them. He was genuinely ticked off when the people of Nineveh repented. Is that why you're here preaching poorly? You're hoping people don't accept Christ so you can watch them roast in the hereafter? Me running from God?  No, that would represent the fear I had of him before (even when I was living for him). I turned around to face God and... there was nothing there but a bunch of Christians like you driving me away. For every Christian who walks his talk I run into a dozen like you. The Lord doesn't want "any to perish but all to come to repentance". Why don't you hold that position? Why do you come on here and pontificate, annoying any who might be interested?

Where did you get despair from my asking if you were arrogant enough to believe that you were God's only child? You're the one who seems to sit at odds with the Bible and other Christians (all the while claiming you know you're right in God's sight). I wouldn't have a problem being a child of God if he existed and followers like you didn't. As Gandhi said, "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"

So you have a hope that you guessed right about the hereafter based on the death of someone who a book claims didn't die? A God who took a few days off before being God again? How did he died for our sins if he didn't die? He's still alive right? He didn't stay dead so did he really die for my sins? Or do you guys keep killing him over and over so you can wash in his blood? Never mind your next paragraph confirms your barbarity - keep killing him so you can keep washing. There is nothing wrong with praying to keep short accounts but you're using it as an excuse to keep sinning your sin of pride when you come to "witness".

It's hard for me to accept Jesus or Paul when the person trying to gain my acceptance doesn't live their words. My problem is not with them but with you.

As for the Mencken quote in my sig - Believe it's despairing if you will but I have the proof of human civilization on my side.

 

JcGadfly,

As to why your picture of man is more "Biblical" than mine it relates to your characterization of my view and conception of "Biblical".   

As for your continued mischaracterization of the prophet Jonah, I want to come back to the subject of this thread: how faith worked for Jonah. 

Men can feel like they are in a uniquely despairing position but Jonah can say that in truth.  His unbelief speaks first - unbelief is always ready to blurt out what is later wished unsaid: "I am cast out from Thy presence".  Later his faith kicked in and, "when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD and my prayer came to Thee, into Thy Holy Temple.  Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty.  But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to Thee; what I have vowed I will pay.  Deliverance belongs to the LORD!"

This is an illustration of how when in poverty faith in God makes us rich, when in weakness faith in God makes us strong, when dead faith in God makes us alive. 

I am not sitting in judgment of you, I am presenting faith in Jesus which can save any man who is lost.  But the Great Physician can only heal those who are sick.  Those who are well have no need of a physician.  Is it true you have no need for Jesus? 

Yes, my hope is totally in Jesus, and if in any way not in Jesus it is my aim and burning desire to correct so it is.  I have great evidence for my hope in Jesus - and yes He is alive, and He is alive in me.  It would be possible to crucify Christ afresh as you mention - that would be by after being delivered from sin through the blood of Jesus to return to it, like a dog eating its vomit.  I don't aim to ever do that; however it would be a great mistake to think it couldn't happen.  I aim to be on guard against that.  This is war to the death and I don't aim to sheathe my sword until dead. 

As for your quote in your signature - yes it is possible to put one's faith in the collective agreement of the opinion of men, but to me it isn't reasonable or what the Light of Life living in my heart shows me is sound.  This would be building on sand.  It won't stand either the storms of life - unique like Jonah's or shared trials - and certainly won't withstand the final storm of the second death.  You won't be comforted by human civilization at that time and you will see then if not now that I am your friend in saying that - regardless of what civilization tells you.

 

 

 

 

jcgadfly wrote:

It's not every day that someone can make me look like a Biblical scholar.

Thanks, fonzie/meph.

 

JcGadfly,

Here the conqueror comes - blow the trumpet, bang the drums.  You seem a little top heavy there, JcGadfly.  True, Jonah was a stubborn character.  He didn't look to God when he was going down to Joppa to board the ship.  He didn't look to God when the storm hit - indeed he was wakened by a heathen (like the story of John Bunyan's conversion).  Some hearts aren't opened by a key but require a crowbar or powder ram. 

The neat thing however is that faith in God alone did work.  When everything was stripped away and Jonah could truthfully say "I alone am going through this wild thing" and the seaweed cleared faith stood up with a "yet" - "I will look to God".  You are right that the prophet Jonah wasn't "once for all disciplined" - it was an ongoing work.  But God was staying right with him with what the stubborn Jonah needed.  It's a message to the backslider.  The sooner one remembers God the better.  And you don't want a mixture now or in these storms of faith and doubt - a single eye is what is needed. 

 

 

 

jcgadfly wrote:

No gloating - just a statement.

I read the Bible - you read the Bible selectively.

You stop after Jonah left the whale and preached. I read on to the gourd and the worm.

I've seen the God you worship - he was surrounded by people who claim, "thank you for making me so much better that these others" - you know, people like you.

Do you remember the Pharisee and the tax collector? I can guess which one you think you are. I can also tell you which one others see in you. They're not the same.

Keep your single eye - it's only looking at a distorted picture of you anyway.

 

JcGadfly,

You pay great tribute to reason.  Is it reasonable that you understand the Bible you don't believe and apply?  Is it reasonable that you reject the mystery of God's salvation revealed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the spotlight of the whole Bible - yet you understand the Bible and bill yourself as a scholar of it?  You don't believe in the God of the Bible yet you understand His written Word.  You reject the Living Word, Christ, the King of Kings - yet it is reasonable to you that you know these things and can pass judgment on them.  Ok.  That's a side of reason that isn't reasonable to me. 

I have read the rest of the book of Jonah, and though I'm not a scholar of it I get a lot of love for God out of it.  God prepared a fish/ a plant, a worm, a hot east wind.  God is in our comforts, losses, trials, ups and downs.  God is working with us just like Jonah - all carefully and Divinely designed and administered with Divine timing.  We in response need to work with God - accepting trials as discipline and everything as coming to us from a loving God Who knows exactly what He's doing. 

Like Jonah said when he prayed in the belly of the fish, "Deliverance is of the LORD".  The first step for a dead man is just as much a miracle as all the rest.  Salvation is all of God from start to finish.  It was God's idea, it was totally God's Blood, it is God's in application.  We need God's grace not just at the first, but every day, every moment.  We don't gather the manna ahead - we gather it daily, minute by minute.  Salvation is all of God as Jonah said in the belly of the fish.  It's not given by a man and a man can't take it away - so I'm thankful for that. 

The fool says in his heart there is no God and the fool shows his folly in living moment by moment as if there is no God.  The real stories, the ones worth telling (like Jonah) and worth saving (for all eternity) are related to God in every respect. 

And God's Salvation is received by man - by faith.  God gives the faith, opens the eyes of the blind, makes the dead come alive and rise up and walk.  If you cry out to God for this faith "who knows?" as the king of Ninevah said - "who knows?" but what He will whet His sword and cross your multi-moats of pride and confidence in reason and your good works and scale the wall of your own ideas and falsely called knowledge and deliver you from your own devices.  The God I love and read about in the book of Jonah is as ready to do that for you as He was for the people of Nineveh.  Perhaps He will shine a shaft of light into your heart and you will have a different thought toward Jesus and yourself and sin.  Perhaps He will release an arrow and you will feel it for your ultimate good. 

 

 

 

Pastor Fonzie/Meph says you can't read the Bible properly without believing in it first.

Fonzie wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

No gloating - just a statement.

I read the Bible - you read the Bible selectively.

You stop after Jonah left the whale and preached. I read on to the gourd and the worm.

I've seen the God you worship - he was surrounded by people who claim, "thank you for making me so much better that these others" - you know, people like you.

Do you remember the Pharisee and the tax collector? I can guess which one you think you are. I can also tell you which one others see in you. They're not the same.

Keep your single eye - it's only looking at a distorted picture of you anyway.

 

JcGadfly,

You pay great tribute to reason.  Is it reasonable that you understand the Bible you don't believe and apply?  Is it reasonable that you reject the mystery of God's salvation revealed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the spotlight of the whole Bible - yet you understand the Bible and bill yourself as a scholar of it?  You don't believe in the God of the Bible yet you understand His written Word.  You reject the Living Word, Christ, the King of Kings - yet it is reasonable to you that you know these things and can pass judgment on them.  Ok.  That's a side of reason that isn't reasonable to me. 

I have read the rest of the book of Jonah, and though I'm not a scholar of it I get a lot of love for God out of it.  God prepared a fish/ a plant, a worm, a hot east wind.  God is in our comforts, losses, trials, ups and downs.  God is working with us just like Jonah - all carefully and Divinely designed and administered with Divine timing.  We in response need to work with God - accepting trials as discipline and everything as coming to us from a loving God Who knows exactly what He's doing. 

Like Jonah said when he prayed in the belly of the fish, "Deliverance is of the LORD".  The first step for a dead man is just as much a miracle as all the rest.  Salvation is all of God from start to finish.  It was God's idea, it was totally God's Blood, it is God's in application.  We need God's grace not just at the first, but every day, every moment.  We don't gather the manna ahead - we gather it daily, minute by minute.  Salvation is all of God as Jonah said in the belly of the fish.  It's not given by a man and a man can't take it away - so I'm thankful for that. 

The fool says in his heart there is no God and the fool shows his folly in living moment by moment as if there is no God.  The real stories, the ones worth telling (like Jonah) and worth saving (for all eternity) are related to God in every respect. 

And God's Salvation is received by man - by faith.  God gives the faith, opens the eyes of the blind, makes the dead come alive and rise up and walk.  If you cry out to God for this faith "who knows?" as the king of Ninevah said - "who knows?" but what He will whet His sword and cross your multi-moats of pride and confidence in reason and your good works and scale the wall of your own ideas and falsely called knowledge and deliver you from your own devices.  The God I love and read about in the book of Jonah is as ready to do that for you as He was for the people of Nineveh.  Perhaps He will shine a shaft of light into your heart and you will have a different thought toward Jesus and yourself and sin.  Perhaps He will release an arrow and you will feel it for your ultimate good. 

 

 

 

You heard it here, guys and gals.

Pastor Fonzie/Meph says you can't read the Bible properly without believing in it first.

I understand that you see a danger in that - it means people might actually read what it says instead of what they've been told to read into it.

I can see that you worship the book instead of its subject. You may as well skip ahead and worship the subject's creators (people).

I also see that you still follow the circular argument of you can't have faith that God will save you until God gives it to you (aka you have to believe in God before you can believe in God).

I see that you're trying to veil your contempt for me in scripture. That way you can call me a fool (which Christ commands against under threat of hellfire) by saying "I was just quoting scripture".

Your series of "God prepared" shows me you didn't read it. God did not prepare them - he sent them. Is it really that hard for God to get someone out of troubles that he put them in to begin with?

Why would I want a different attitude about sin? Mine is the same as yours. It doesn't exist for both of us (just for different reasons). It doesn't exist for me because I see no evidence for the God who created it. It doesn't exist for you because Paul of Tarsus, the creator of your religion, absolved believers in Christ from following God's law (see Romans 4). 

Fonzie, are you saying that the Devil is making you tweak Scripture that fits your own narrow views?

Or are you calling me the Devil because I look at what the Bible says instead of what you'd like it to say?

Or are you daring to compare yourself to Christ?

Fonzie wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

Fonzie, are you saying that the Devil is making you tweak Scripture that fits your own narrow views?

Or are you calling me the Devil because I look at what the Bible says instead of what you'd like it to say?

Or are you daring to compare yourself to Christ?

 

JcGadfly,

The specific point we were discussing was the question of the understanding of Scripture as related to the accepting of the God Who wrote it and Who sent the Living Word to give us a full size model of Who He is and What He meant.  Your position is that you can understand Scripture without believing God or applying it to your life.  I brought up an example of how easy it is to misunderstand what God says et. al. from the mouth of the Devil. 

This happened in the Garden of Eden with a subtle coloring of God's rule, then a statement of the opposite ("you will not die...).  If you take the position that the Devil really understands Scripture - how is it that he would settle his own fate in killing the Lamb of God, the death of Death?  How is it that he would think he could take on God if he really understands Scripture? 

I'm not calling you the Devil or comparing myself to Christ.  Why are you so touchy you can't just discuss a point without blowing it into a personal assault?  I honestly don't think it is possible to understand the Word of God without accepting God and Jesus - Who removes the barrier between God and man (sin) so God can draw us near, and we can "know the Shepherd's Voice".  "My sheep know My Voice".  You by your own admission are not one of the Lord's sheep.  You therefore don't know His voice.  I'm saying you the guy named JcGadfly don't truly understand His Words.  I'm also saying that could change if you come to believe in Jesus. 

 

 

 

 

That's laughably hypocritical of you.

You call up the old proverb "the devil can cite scripture for his own ends and then say you weren't calling me the devil. Too funny.

Oh, you know the Devil told the truth in the Garden, don't you? You can try to get away from that but it needs some severe mental gymnastics.

What you keep saying

"I honestly don't think it is possible to understand the Word of God without accepting God and Jesus"

makes it impossible for anyone to be saved.

Your logic says that that a person has to have accepted Jesus before they can accept Jesus.

As I said, mental gymnastics. All that work to cover up how God caused man to sin and "fall".

The rest is an impressive preachy dodge. Why do you want no one to be saved?

God's hate?

How did Jonah survive in the belly of the fish?

Fonzie wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

As I said, mental gymnastics. All that work to cover up how God caused man to sin and "fall".

The rest is an impressive preachy dodge. Why do you want no one to be saved?

 

JcGadfly,

Yes you say things but they don't make sense. 

He who believes in Jesus will be saved.  This is the only way anyone can be saved.  This is the Way He has provided. 

 

 

 

It's a shame your logic forbids that.

Since you have to be a Christian before you can be saved (in your eyes), it's impossible for anyone to change.

Or is this a backpedal?

I do like how you fall back on the "you have to lose your pride and be like ME" line. Nice bit of irony.

jcgadfly wrote:

Fonzie wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

As I said, mental gymnastics. All that work to cover up how God caused man to sin and "fall".

The rest is an impressive preachy dodge. Why do you want no one to be saved?

 

JcGadfly,

Yes you say things but they don't make sense. 

He who believes in Jesus will be saved.  This is the only way anyone can be saved.  This is the Way He has provided. 

 

 

 

It's a shame your logic forbids that.

Since you have to be a Christian before you can be saved (in your eyes), it's impossible for anyone to change.

Or is this a backpedal?

I do like how you fall back on the "you have to lose your pride and be like ME" line. Nice bit of irony.

 

JcGadfly,

Jesus stands at the door and knocks, waiting for you to open to Him.  You can learn enough to open and accept Him - but as far as what a relationship with Him and God is like - that is foreign to your experience.  Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit provide exactly what you need for change - not me.   

You could imagine what it was like to be married.  You could even pretend you were married.  You still wouldn't know what being married is like until you were married.  

Don't have a desire for you to be like me - except as Paul meant it before Felix (you being a Bible scholar no further explanation needed).

 

Fonzie wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:

God's hate?

 

Atheistextremist,

God is Love.  His justice and mercy are both evident and made known in Christ lifted up.  When we look to Him - like the Israelites who had been bitten by fiery serpents in the wilderness looked to the bronze serpent on the pole lived - we live and are saved from death when we look to Jesus and put all our trust in Him and His blood poured out as the atoning price for our sins paid by God Himself.  

You are saved like Noah on the ark in Christ from this present evil world. 

 

 

Ummmmmmmmmmm. What do I need mercy from, Fonzie, Who is god saving me from? His misunderstanding of the word forgiveness?

I don't need any one's 'blood poured out' for me. That's plain creepy.

 

Way to miss the point there, guy.

What you say is impossible according to your own logic. You see, in your view, before I can be in a relationship with God I have to be in a relationship with God. To push your marriage analogy into your mindset that you are now running from - I'd have to be already married to my current wife before I could marry her for the first time.

Do you not read what you write?

As for Paul before Felix - I really don't think it's a good idea to lie before authorities as Paul did when he said "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets." or how he claimed Roman citizenship as it suited him (despite being a Benjamite).

So you concede the point that no one can be saved according to you?

You've not mentioned it yet - how is it possible to meet your requirement of having God's salvation before one can receive it?

smartypants wrote:

 Fonzie,

I just wanted to say that I understand where you're coming from, because I was more or less a Christian for some time, and it worked for me also. When I started learning more about it, I realized I just could not believe it was true anymore, and had to find other explanations for what I'd experienced. I won't tell you what I learned, because I don't want to destroy what you have. It was not an easy realization, quite the contrary, I felt a bit of disappointment and disconnectedness. But what replaced that was a clarity in the truth that I found satisfying in a much more grounded sort of way than I'd ever felt before.

Good luck in this forum, it can get nasty in here.

R

Have no fear for him - he gives as good as he gets.

Fonzie wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

So you concede the point that no one can be saved according to you?

You've not mentioned it yet - how is it possible to meet your requirement of having God's salvation before one can receive it?

 

JcGadfly,

 

I don't concede any of your points. 

Those who believe in Jesus will be saved.  Those who don't believe in Him will be lost.

If you are lost it will be your own fault.  If you are saved it will be all to God's glory. 

 

 

 

 

Funny that - I'm asking you to agree with your points. Shame you still can't do it.

You say that one needs faith before coming to God - you also claim that God will give a person that faith.

So do you come to god with faith or do you sit on your butt and let God give you that faith?

Once again, do you need to be a christian before you become a Christian (as you claim) or do you start with nothing and initiate the relationship with god?

Either way god needs you more than you need him.

  Your part is not resisting the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  

Would you agree that what you think of as "the guidance of the Holy Spirit" is a subjective experience?  If so, do you understand that the longevity of that subjective experience doesn't turn it into testable evidence?

How did Jonah survive in the belly of the fish?

 

butterbattle,

Jonah survived in the belly of the fish by the power of the One Who made the fish, Jonah, water, land, trees, electrons and coffee.  By things He created and holds together we survive just like Jonah - only not in the belly of a fish but on the surface of a ball floating in space.

If you think the gospel of God is only one of many revelations, try the exercise of reading other pretended revelations such as the Koran or Book of Mormon.  You would have to work at it to not laughing if you have any spiritual discernment. 

jcgadfly wrote:

"Things I don't have faith in get fed too - man's arrogant ideas trying to do his impression of God.  I see more and more the folly of it. "

Good. I look forward to you not doing it any more.

 

JcGadfly,

I'd need a lot of "reverb" if I ever tried that 

Fonzie wrote:

It's most subjective trying to describe it to you.  It grows out of faith in Christ which is a seed I can't produce in you or prove - but neither can I deny the experience which is most real in me. 

As is almost always the case, I think this comes down to values. 

I value reason and scientific methods of investigation because they have repeatedly been shown to be the most effective means of distinguishing between reality and nonsense and they are the most effective means of improving humanity's lot on this world.  They are our best shot at something better than an existence that Hobbes described as "nasty, brutish, and short".

It used to be that if you wanted to have three kids, you'd better have five because you could expect two of them to die.  It used to be that if a man wanted to have children, he could reasonably expect to marry more than once because he was likely to lose at least one wife in childbirth.  Modern agriculture has made it possible to feed all the billions of humans that inhabit this world (look up Norman Borlaug).  What made the difference?  Not faith, not prayer, not meditation or homeopathy or chiropractic or personally meaningful subjective experiences with a supposed deity.  No, it was science and reason that made the death of a child or a woman in childbirth so rare that they are surprising when they occur in societies which have benefited form such disciplines.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether or not God/Christ is real, what do you see as the practical benefits of faith?  What values are fulfilled by your beliefs?