WOW!!

YA'LL HAVE YOUR DIFFERENT THEORIES YET YOU DONT LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR AND WANDER WHO MADE US , AND GAVE YOU LIFE TO LIVE THIS JOURNEY WE CALL LIFE.

BEFORE WE WERE BORN HE ALREADY KNEW WHO AND WHAT WE WILL BECOME, ALREADY GIVEN US LOVE AS HE WAS CREATING US .

MAYBE GRAB A BIBLE AND READ FROM GENESIS , TO THE END OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION ,WHICH IS THE END OF TIMES.

IF YOU WANT TO FIND REAL ANSWERS THERE ALL IN THERE, WAITING FOR PEOPLE AS YOURSELF TO READ AND UNDERSTAND WHY WE ARE ALL HERE ON THIS EARTH . AND THE PURPOSES OF OUR LIVES . ETC

IM NOT HEAR TO PREACH TO YOU . BUT FOR YOU TO SEE WHATS BEEN CLOSED FOR YOU .

GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AROUND WHEN WE THOUGHT WE WAS ALONE AND NO ONE WAS THERE , YOU DONT HAVE TO SEE TO BELIEVE , BY FAITH HE GIVES US HOPE . LOVE AND PEACE .

A QUOTE WHAT DOES BIBLE MEAN? ILL SPELL IT OUT FOR U


B-BASIC
I-INSTRUCTIONS
B-BEFORE
L-LEAVING
E-EARTH


HOPE YOU THE BEST IN YOUR JOURNEY . SMILES

GOD BLESS YOUR DAYS

MAY YOU LIVE LONG .

There you go again reducing God to being as incapable as a human parent.



Your analogy doesn't hold water.

Would you be at fault if something bad happens to one of your children and you had the POWER to prevent it?

That's the real question that needs to be asked!

You ask if it's your parents fault that something bad happened to you, but your parents didn't create disease! And they can't prevent it or cure it by waving a magick wand. But supposedly GOD COULD!

Jesus promised!


John.14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Why does your Jesus lie so much?

What the hell is he telling everyone that whatsoever they ask in his name he will do if he has no intention of ever following through on these words?

Jesus either doesn't exist, or he's a liar.

Make up your mind.

OR you can believe as I believe and "save" Jesus from this corrupt religion by recognizing that the entire New Testament is most likely just exaggerated rumors and that Jesus himself never made thews outrageous promises and claims.

I've seen countless examples of extremely religious devote people who were constantly distraught and begging for "prayer requests" from other people because Jesus wasn't ANSWERING THEIR PRAYERS!

Oh sure, they kept the "faith" alright, in SPITE of the fact that Jesus never kept HIS WORD!

In order to believe in the Bible that you sell, I'd have no choice but to believe that Jesus was a liar who never keeps his word.

If you want to "Save" Jesus, your best bet is to renounce the New Testament as most likely being exaggerated hearsay gossip. Otherwise Jesus would be a liar.

Jesus would not be a man of his WORD if the New Testament were true.

You'll need to reject the New Testament if you want to save Jesus.

Every word of that is the truth. How is he a lair?

If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

I asked. He didn't do it.

Thus the words are untrue.

It's pretty simple.

He would actually need to keep his word in order for them to be true, Cowboy.

John 14:13-14 doesn't stand alone, you skipped John 14:15.



Name in John 14:13-14 doesn't mean "proper name", it means "place". Like "In the name of King Arthur, open your doors!" Jesus' name isn't a magic word, if you say it you get whatever you want. If someone loves Jesus and keeps his commandments and asks for something which will truly be for their (or another's) good (as determined by God, not the requester), then Jesus will grant what is requested.

That most certainly shouldn't have been a problem at the time. I certainly loved Jesus, at the time, and was certainly living by his standards, at the time. Still do today as a matter of fact. Even if only by coincidence.

Moreover, where was there any disclaimer in the words of Jesus to the effect of "for something which will truly be for their (or another's) good (as determined by God, not the requester), then Jesus will grant what is requested."

That's not what Jesus said. He said anything you ask in my name, I will do.

Besides, as far as I'm concerned what I was asking for was definitely for the good of everyone. So that should not have been an issue at all.

Again, all you're doing is trying to make excuses for something that's inexcusable.

I've already explain the "disclaimer". It's in the word "name". It's talking about asking for something that fits with God's will. God's will is always for our own good, so you have to ask for something which is for the good of all effected (in God's opinion, not yours).

How do you know it was "definitely for the good of everyone"? How do you know that? You are saying that you used to believe in an omniscient God, but you believe you know better than him? I'm sure you really wanted whatever it was that you prayed for, but obviously what you prayed for didn't fit with God's will.

This also emphasis the other issue that I often bring up.

Why would an all-wise and all-intelligent God say misleading and ambiguous things if that's not what he meant to say?

The scriptures have Jesus saying, "anything you ask in my name, I will do."

If what he truly meant was, "I will give you what I determine is right for you when I determine that it is proper", then why not just say that directly?

This brings up the very serious question of why a supposedly all-wise God is saying clearly ambiguous things that aren't articulated to actually convey what's he's actually trying to say.

Why should a perfect, all-wise, all-powerful God have such communication problems?

He should be able to say precisely what he means directly without any ambiguity.

It shouldn't be the slightest bit of a problem for him to find the perfect WORDS if he is the infinitely wise creator of all that exist.

In fact, the idea behind these myths is that Jesus was "The Word" made flesh, and then we're supposed to believe that Jesus can't even find the right words to state what he means clearly without ambiguity?

Why say, "anything you ask in my name, I will do."?

If what is truly meant is, "I will give you what I feel you need and/or deserve at any given time".

Then there wouldn't be an ambiguity at all.

You people want to have your cake and eat it too. Jesus is "The Word" made flesh, yet he can't seem to find the right words to convey ideas that you people claim he was supposedly attempting to convey?

Sounds pretty fishy to me.

That's exactly what it says when you understand the context and the meaning of the words.

EDIT: Honestly, I'm trying to be nice here, but I have to ask...Do you really think it says that if you ask in Jesus' name for anything, you will get it? So if you pray for a billion dollars and every woman on the planet to be your willing sex slave, you think you should get it? Where does the line exist in your mind? It sounds almost like something a child would think, that God is Santa Clause and as long as you sign your prayer off with "In the name of Jesus", he'll bring you whatever you ask for down the chimney.

If you don't want to accept the commentary I posted on John 14:13-15, that's fine, but please understand what you BELIEVE the scriptures to say is childish and superficial.

Well, like I said in my previous post. He should have just said what he meant then instead of saying something totally different from that.

It's that simple.

Why would an all-wise God say such stupid and unwise things?

"anything you ask in my name, I will do."

That's what he supposedly said if we are to believe the gospels.

Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You can always come up with lame excuses like this for everything.

If that's the case then nothing that's written in the gospels has any value because you can always find utterly absurd ways to interpret it to mean anything you want.

In fact, this is why the religion has become so confused and fragmented into so many opposing sects: Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and the myriad of arrogant self-proclaimed Paper Popes of Protestantism. They have all taken these same basic ambiguous fables and transformed them into their own little personal fairytales.

And then they have the absolute audacity to claim that only their version of the folklore is the "True Word of God".

James,

It's not my fault, God's fault or anyone else's fault that you can't comprehend what you read. You are calling using context and the actual definition of the word a "lame excuse"?

No I'm not. I'm saying that any supposedly all-wise deity who is "The Word Made Flesh", shouldn't be saying anything ambiguous at all. Or even remotely close to it.

Instead of saying "anything you ask in my name, I will do."

He could have just as easily said, "I can do anything you ask, so feel free to ask anything in my name, and if I determine that it is right for you I will do it."

But that's not what is being said.

You're expecting me to believe that an all-wise creator of this universe who is "The Word Made Flesh" can't even say what he means?

Or perhaps you are suggesting that maybe something was lost in the translations!

But you better be real careful with the later, because as soon as you confess that the Bible can potentially contain ambiguities introduced by mere mortal men, then you open the FLOOD GATES of individual interpretations that would allow everyone interpretations to be just as valid as anyone else's.

Once you do that, then my claims that Jesus was totally misunderstood and that the New Testament is mostly misunderstood superstitious rumors takes on every bit as much merit as any other interpretation.

So the bottom line is really quite simple. Either the bible is the verbatim word of God or it's not.

If it is the verbatim word of God, then my point is that God doesn't use the best possible words to convey his thoughts (thus indicating that he's not all-wise, and all-perfect as claimed, and therefore the fables fail)

Otherwise, if you allow for misinterpretations and potentially misunderstood "quotes" from Jesus, then all hell breaks loose because anyone's interpretations are valid. In fact, people can easily say, "Well I don't believe that Jesus said that precise thing, or meant to imply what that particular quote seems to be implying).

This is the problem with this religion based on scriptures.

If the scriptures are God's verbatim words, then God is ambiguous, not perfect, and far from all-wise.

If the scriptures are considered to only be a rough guestimate of what God might have meant, then the flood gates of personal interpretation are flung wide-open and no one has the right to question anyone eles's personal interpretations of these scriptures.

Religious fundamentalists and Paper Popes lose either way.

Why not? Jesus intentionally used parables so that those who refused to believe couldn't understand what he was teaching. God wants you to believe through faith, not because you read something and knew it was true. If you really want to understand the Bible, then I would point you to Proverbs 1:7 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"

These are precisely the kinds of "Paper Pope Opinions" that I have no interest in.

I don't believe in a God who is walking on eggshells being ambiguous so as not to convince non-believers of his truth.

Sure I realize that these kinds of insinuations are indeed made in the biblical scriptures. And that's just yet another reason why I feel that they are nothing more than the deceitful made-up lies of men.

Why would a loving parent purposeful confuse his children in an attempt to keep non-believers from believing in him, especially if it's supposedly God's greatest desire that people BELIEVE in him?

This is clearly just the rhetoric of men who were trying to make excuses for why their religion is so asinine.

In the end, you'd need to believe that God is just as untrustworthy and deceitful as the men who made up these fables!

And evidently you do!

But I'm not going there.

I see the deceitful tricks that these religious hustlers used on people as they continued to support these religious myths to keep people under their thumbs.

Paper Popes are never happy until their word is God!.

Once you have accepted Christ as your 'savior' that's just the tip of the iceberg. Then you must confess and agree with all the interpretations of the Paper Popes as well!

Yes, God hates homosexuality.

Yes, God wants men to be the head of the household.

Yes, Paul speaks for Jesus!

Yes, Almighty Paper Pope, all religions that disagree with Christianity and these bigoted values is truly the Word of God!

Praise Jesus I've been "SAVED"!

Yeah right.

All that has truly happened is that I gave into man-made bigotries in the name of Jesus as "The Christ".

It's basically a scam that has nothing to do with love or anything righteous.

"Jesus intentionally used parables so that those who refused to believe couldn't understand what he was teaching."

That would have been a hell of a disgusting thing for a deity to do if indeed it is true.

Where are these people's FREE WILL CHOICE if the God is intentionally trying to confuse them?

That would be a very deceitful and unloving God right there.

So if you claim that God is like this, then I definitely don't want to have anything to do with your religion. It's clearly unrighteous and obviously false religion that worships an untrustworthy and deceitful deity.

I think my theory makes far more sense:

Jesus used parables because that's what Buddhists do!

Simple, straight-forward, and no need for Jesus to be trying to deceive anyone. Buddhists don't use parables to deceive but rather to cause their students to have to think about things in a way that will force them to abandon their normal perspective of things.

So the fact that Jesus taught in parables only further supports the idea that he was probably a Buddhist or at least has some training or experience along those lines.

God is only your parent if you are born again, if you have accepted Jesus as lord and savior. That is why it's referred to as being born "again". When you are originally born, you are born to the flesh. When you accept Jesus as lord and savior you lay your life down right there and pick up the life our father has set out before us for us to live. You change your outlook on life and what you're living for. You become a different person then you were, eg., you are born again.

God confuses no one. You don't see the truth cause you choose not to. You have put a blockade for God, you reject him with every breath. If one is handing you some food cause you're hungry and they love you, how is it that person's fault that you didn't get the food when you were refusing it? How can God be in your life blessing you if you continuously reject him and push him away?

For one thing I don't push God away. I simply expose the dastardly lies of self-appointed Paper Popes and false man-made brainwashing schemes.

You claim that God confuses no one, but that flies directly in the face of what Spider just held up as his truth:

"Jesus intentionally used parables so that those who refused to believe couldn't understand what he was teaching."

In fact, I agree with Spider that these fables do indeed make a claim along these very lines.

Moreover, and much more to my point, LOOK AT YOU!

Here you are fighting tooth and nail to try to get non-believers to believe, and trying to make up every possible excuse and explanation you possible can to justify these religious fables,...

All the while,..

The LORD you claim to be serving went out of his way to purposefully use parables make things vague and confusing just so non-believers wouldn't catch on to what he was saying.

If you want to serve this LORD who doesn't want things to be explained to non-believers in clear and unambitious terms, then you too should be tip-toeing around behind the scenes only speaking quietly in parables to those who wish to BELIEVE!

Going around arguing to the death with non-believers trying to explain to them what Jesus actually meant would be a direct violation of what Jesus himself was trying to accomplish then!

How can you claim to be serving Jesus if you are doing just the opposite of what he did?

The paradoxical actions and behavior of Christian proselytizers just become more apparent with every passing day.

If Jesus doesn't want non-believers to believe, then why the hell are you going around arguing tooth-and-nail with non-believers trying to get them to believe in something that even Jesus himself was clearly trying to HIDE from them?

If Jesus doesn't want non-believers to understand his teachings, then why are you blatantly rebelling against HIS WILL?

I thought you wanted to SERVE this God?

Surely if Jesus spoke in parables so that non-believers could not understand what he was saying, then when he commanded his disciples to go out and 'spread the word' he clearly meant to spread it only to BELIEVERS! And not to non-believers!

So why are you so passionate about violating the WILL of Jesus?

You should be tip-toeing around quietly behind the scenes only sharing your knowledge of the Lord with those who already believe in God!

Keep in mind, that at Jesus time, a "believer" meant a person who believes in GOD. Not a person who believes in Jesus, because at that point they haven't even yet heard what Jesus had to say.

So you should ONLY be concerned with spreading the word of Jesus to people who already believe in the God of Abraham, and tip-toe right past any non-believers and hope that they don't overhear the "good news".

But no, instead, you argue tooth-and-nail on a daily basis with non-believers trying to explain to them what Jesus actually meant.

That's a direct violation of what Jesus himself was asking his disciples to do!

just a note...

it takes two to argue

in this case, non believers argue what is 'wrong' or 'illogical' or 'hypocritical' about what believers believe

and believers argue why those things are not 'wrong' or 'illogical' or 'hypocritical'

It may look that way to you, but it doesn't appear that way from the perspective of someone who does not believe in the Abrahamic Religions.

I've been on these forums for years. I confess that there was a time a few years ago when there were some pretty interesting discussions on these boards concerning spirituality in general. For some reason there was a "dry spell" of paper popes.

However, for the most part, a person can't truly suggest any potential spiritual view that does not conform to the Bible and the God of Abraham without having an evangelists or Paper Pope popping in stating that anything other than "Jesus Christ is Lord" is false!

Well, that's a 'demand'.

The people who are trying to discuss other possible spiritual scenarios often begin by just politely saying something like, "Thanks we've heard that story and prefer to consider other things".

And then it starts. The Christian proselytizers start ranting on about why their religion should be accepted and why it makes sense.

The non-believers then start explaining why they don't buy it. And it just goes on and on an on forever.

Why? Because the proselytizers won't DROP IT!

For example, how many times have I told Cowboy that I'm perfectly cool with his beliefs. If he wants to believe in the Bible and that mankind fell from grace and that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of God who wants to be obeyed, etc, etc, etc. then FINE!

I accept that this is his relationship with God. And I have no problem with that.

But what does he do? He continually insinuates and accuses me of rejecting God and refusing to obey God, blah, blah, blah ad nausea.

Here we go a mere two posts ago!



I don't see the truth?

I choose not to?

I have put up a blockade for God?

I continually reject and push God away?

That's not merely an attempt to try to "explain" his beliefs to me.

He's making outright accusations about my personal relationship with any supposed creator.

God is a generic term. Most all religions and spiritual philosophies speak in terms of some sort of "God concept even if they don't necessarily personify it.

So he's not merely trying to explain a religion. He's out to accuse people of rejecting God!

And to be perfectly honest about it MsHarmony I can't help but feel that he does it partly because he thinks it upsets me and he likes to push people's buttons.

But it doesn't truly upset me on a personal level because I know his accusations are all hogwash anyway. But it does drive home my point about how precisely what these proselytizers and Paper Popes do to people!

They try to sell them their specific brand of Snake Oil (as AB would call it), and then accuse everyone of "refusing to obey God" if they don't cower down to the Paper Pope's personal religiously bigoted views.

And then he screams, "Oh but it's not my views! It's what God has commanded of us!"

Yeah right.

I'm sorry for any truly innocent by-standers who might feel like they get caught in the cross-fire between outrageous Paper Popes and people who aren't prepared to worship them and their personal interpretations of scriptures and personal accusations toward other people.

If anything this only represents the worst possible side of the religion.

Even when I was a Christian I still wouldn't have supported Cowboy's views or tactics. The fact that this religion creates such hardcore fundamentalists who use it to go around judging other people's relationship with God based on whether or not they agree with specific interpretations of scripture only serves to demonstrate precisely how devoid of divinity these religions can truly be.

This is why the Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Protestants are often pointing the finger of hate at each other. All because they take different interpretations of ancient scriptures.

"I disagree with your interpretations of these ancient scriptures! Therefore you must be rejecting God!"

That's where these kinds of "Jealous God" religions lead.

Unfortunately.