And to other people yours is a "perverse interpretation " of the bible. Do you have the original texts?Do you know the people who wrote it? Can you pove it is the word of god? Why is your interpetation better than other peoples?
You say we carn't use human logic to judge what a God would or wouldn't do , but if we carn't use logic then how do we work anything out at all. At one point you talk of huamn laws of logic such as maths being right , then say we carn't use logic to judge whether it makes sense that God wrote the Bible in such a way that most religions who believe they are following it have done bad things.
If I carnt use my logic on that issue why use it anyware else?
As for the Catholic Church, let us not forget that Martin Luther was saved when he was saved while in the Catholic Church Certainly not all Catholics are saved. But the Catholic Church has always subscribed to the Orthodox historic creeds regarding the trinity. That is something. The balanced approach is to affirm their confession of the triune God, but to repudiate their accursed teaching of Salvation through works
Response: I find your standard of what is “balanced” a bit arbitrary. You have no biblical standard. You believe in the Trinity, that’s great it’s true, but how is that going to help you if you try to save yourself, sola fide if you truly believe that is the key, God justifies the wicked by faith alone, the sinner is now saved and is united to the triune God. The papist don’t offer that, their gospel is dammed just like the JW’s. Your take on Marten Luther needs some clearing up to do. Luther was save approx 1517 at the time of the 95 theses at the Wittenburgh door or maybe later in 1518 during his “first tower experience” when Romans 1:16-17 and Romans 3:21 first to ring clear in his head. Rome finally condemned the gospel when they official anathematize the gospel of Paul’s teaching of faith alone at the Counsel of Trent in 1564 at this time the Roman Catholic Church became officially a false church.
Q for CF: Do you take an exception to the Westminster Confession of Faith in regards to it’s position on the Roman Catholic Church? Are you going to leave the reformed faith and become a Papist like that Scott Hahn?
REM said:
Can you point to a time in history where there have been no wars?
Response: Good you are getting the point of the biblical teaching of Depravity. Lord willing by the grace of God you’ll be saved and a Calvinist yet.
Challenge: REM or anyone else who hates the Lord but thinks he some sort of a wanna be biblical exegete. In light of your current unbelief in the bible how can you give an account of Isaiah 45:1?
I'm not sure how acknowledging the fact that humans are and always have been violent to one another relates to the Bible's supposed teaching of Depravity. It seems to be pretty self evident to me.
As far as Isaiah 45:1 is concerned, until someone produces a pre-sixth century BC manuscript with the same wording, I will have to assume that the references to Cyrus were made after the events happened. Occam's razor to the rescue! :)
rem
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
To all the believers of the bible I must say thank you. If ever I need reason to doubt that the bible is truly the work of nomads who lived thousands of years ago and has absolutely no value on my life what so ever other than common sense stuff all I will ever have to do is read this thread. You use the broad generalizations in the bible ("people will persecute you") to talk about how it is truly inspired even though anyone that is successful could say that. For the prophesies that actually get specific it seems rather odd though that the oldest manuscripts were written long after these foretold events. You talk about the high moral standards espoused in the bible ("love thy neighbor") which is just common sense stuff that is needed for the survival of a species. You also seem to leave out the little bits about how god's people would always go destroy their enemies. Sure, the message of Jesus (love your neighbor and god) is plain and simple but that's not the only part of the bible. There's a whole crap load of other stuff in there too that doesn't make much sense. Not only that but I wouldn't exactly call the message of Jesus to be groundbreaking. True, there may be a lot of good in the bible (that can be found in just about any holy work) there's also a lot of bad. Correct me if I'm wrong here but the god of the bible is supposed to be big and almighty and perfect then why is there so much crap in the bible? If I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times; If god (in whatever form you may believe him) ever actually has spoken to man then why hasn't he done so more clearly and in a way that can leave no doubt?
