Greetings,
To Gumby:
It is fine with me Gumby. I do not take offense to your words because the words that were given to you were not mine. They were his words. It is up to you if you wish to believe what is true, or believe what you want to believe. If you 'see' people and you believe they are crying out for help and you believe that God does not help them according to what your eyes show you and you wish to rely on what your own eyes reveal to you, then you will fall victim to what your eyes tell you, whether it is true or false (it is true that what you 'see' is not always what is). If you have already decided in your heart to only believe what you see, then you will not hear anything that is true, only what agrees with what you see. For as long as you continue to wish this, this will always be the case with you. If you wish to change and want to change... you will change. If you wish to remain as you are, you will remain as you are.
To Terry:
As the Professor you spoke with began to bring out, many people are misled by the things they do not know or understand. Many who rely upon what is written in the Bible without knowing about the Bible do fall victim to many of its contradictions, mistranslation, mistransliterations, and are left with only what other people have told them or what their own thoughts believe. The scribes who copied the scriptures were condemned by the Christ for their corruption back then. How much more so would the corruption be now?
If we stopped assuming, stopped relying upon what others told us, and learned to rely upon the One from whom all truth comes from, we would not be victim to these things. We would have been exposed by the Christ for our assumptions, for our relying upon what other people told us, for not knowing the things we THOUGHT we knew. If after being exposed of these things we actually came to terms with them and accpeted them, we would then know (if we wanted to) what is true as opposed to what others were misled to believe. We know what we "want" to know, and we believe what we "want" to believe. Many Professors, Teachers, Psychologists and others in the world know things that are true because they keep "asking." Those who 'ask' for what is true, receive what is true because the Christ gives to anyone asking, ANYONE seeking, anyone knocking. Those who listened to what he said and use what he said, saw how it brings true benefit and begin teaching it to others. People ask until they receive and many times after they receive, they stop asking. This happens many times with Professors, Teachers, Psychologists, and others in the world. After they have received what is true, they decide to incorporate their own insight into it and unkowingly 'color' it with falsehood. That is why many of what they say is true and in same same breath some of it is false.
Peace to you all,
Aaron