PSacramento

Joined

• started 80 topics
• posted 11,008 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by PSacramento

• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  PSac - I asked you earlier to explain how Jesus getting himself crucified had anything to do with demonstrating his love for us.

  In what way is it different from a teenage boy cutting his wrists to "prove his love" for his girlfriend?

  Please explain simply and without metaphors.

  Sure, Jesus act of becoming human shows Us the kind of God He is and the kind of God that we are to CHOOSE to worship.

  He loves us so much that He gave up being God to be human ( as opposed to humans trying to be God), He went throught the full process of being human in all ways, including a very horrific death.

  He did that to show how much He loved us, how He feels we are deserving of that kind of love and to show what kind of love He is asking from us.

  He leaves it to us to decide if what He has done is worthy of our worship.

  He is not the kind of God that "fix things" ( the only mention of things getting fixed is at the very end of things), He is the kind of God that sufferes WITH US, that knows our pain because He had gone through with it and the kind of God that has given as a living example of what will happen at the end ( the resurrection and eternal life).

  It is up to us to decide if that kind of God is worth worshiping, the choice has always been and will always be ours.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  In case you haven't figured it our, the love Jesus spoke about ( since it keeps getting referred to) is self-sacrifice.

  Which is what God did when He became flesh.

  That is His expression of Love, that is Love.

  You may see it as flawed and even see my view as flawed from your POV and that's fine, but don't keep brining Christ into this whenm in His own words He says:

  John 15:12-13

  12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

  THAT is the personification of Love in Christ.

  As for the arugment for compassion being demolished because SOME people are not compassionate in the face of suffering, well...I don't really view that as an argument at all.

  That is like saying that because some people are that are loved are not loving means that loving people doesn't lead to love.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  This is a discussion board after all. Taking different sides to an issue is how new ideas, new thoughts are generated. It is true that I am challenging your answers. But your answers are not factual or complete. There are holes. Those holes need to be talked about.

  Yes there are holes, there are holes in the argument that God SHOULD do soemthing too, but these tend to be holes that are emotion based and from the POV that we, humans, want God to fix things our way and that we can't/won't understand why He doesn't and we think that He can't possibly have a good reason for allowing things to be the way they are.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  You seem to be having issues with the fact that you simply do NOT agree with my answers, and that is fine as I mentioned before.

  We simply do NOT KNOW why God decides to not intervene and we can simplu express POSSIBLE views, which is what I have done.

  Agreement with this views is irrelevant to be honest.

  You can argue that it makes God this way and that BUT none of that changes anything really.

  Natural disasters happen ( though they are only disasters when deaths and damage occure), they are a part of God's creative process ( whether good or bad is not relevant), there is no indication that God is suppose to intervene in these natural processes and the only reason to think He should is because we THINK that He should base don OUR view of what we think God is, correct?

  If God is a god of love then He SHOULD intervene because love means having to do everything possible to proctect your loved ones, right?

  The thing is, proctect them from what? suffering? pain? death? all things that are part of the natural process of life and existence.

  In short we want God to make is immortal, we want no pain or suffering and want God to intervene so there is no pain and suffering and death, ever.

  We want to be like god, immortal.

  God's replay to that?

  God became one of US.

  You may not like His reply, may not agree with it, BUT that is His reply.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  Psac: how does your reply answer Humble's question Re: the golden rule. If your god felt the suffering as you say: why would he sit back and allow thousands to die and suffer?

  I have no answer that will satisify you, sorry.

  I know that we want God to fix things, to interfer when natural disaters happen, that we can't put our minds arouns why IF He can do something, why doesn't he and that is why I always start by asking the person asking the question like you did, is there any answer to that question that you will accept? Most are quite honest and say, NO.

  Also re: Jesus/God: Jesus interfered with natural events: he calmed the wind; he helped his apostles fish; he brought Lazarus from the dead. Hev saw first hand how much suffering losing a loved causes us.

  Yes, He did all that, why?

  So what excuse / reason is there for him to go back to heaven and sit on his hands?

  We might as well have no God.

  What reason can God ( or anyone here for that matter) give you that would satisfy you?
• 
  10

  Interesting query and reply about THE CROSS on Bart Ehrman's blog

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  kleenmaint july 5, 2014. dear bart:.

  i couldnt find a topic on josephus so i hope you see my question.

  in your book did jesus exist on page 59 you quote (antiquities 18.3.3).. both this quotation and the more conservative version that seemed more plausible as his original writing have one very fundamental flaw that you didnt mention.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  The Epistle of Barnabas ( respected enough to be included in the Codex Sinaiticus) states that the cross Jesus was crucified on was in the shape of the letter "TAU", "T".
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  Psac, how does your reply answer Humble's question re: god following the principal of the golden rule?

  I am curious also.

  If there is a god I dont think he cares. I think we are so beneath him that a few thousand , millions of lives doesnt even register.

  We are God's ant farm.

  You MAY be right, maybe He doesn't care all that much, OR maybe He cares in such a different way that it doesn't register on our level OR maybe He cares enough to give up all that He was, become one of Us, live like Us, suffere like Us and die like Us so that we may know Him not as some being beyond Us but as someome willing to give up ALL for Us.
• 
  20

  The More I Think, The More I Lose Faith In BIBLE!!

  by NoMoreHustle in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sitting through this weeks wt study.

  paragraph came up about how "a fire came out from jah & consumed (korah and) the 250 men offering the incense".

  i said to myself this supposedly happened couple of thousand years ago.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  I really am starting to think that the whole bible thing is really starting to look more like a bunch of little stories contrived by man. Just an opinion & still trying to figure things out for myself. NMH

  The bible was most certinaly written BY Man FOR MAN, there is no gray area there. It was written to POINT the way to God NOT to BE GOD ot take the place of God ( or common sense for that matter). It is a collection of many books and letters, all with differen puposes BUT with the same goal- to give a historical THEOLOGICAL account of God realtionship with people and it is written from the perspective of a small group of people.

  The bible is a fascinationg read because it syas as much BAD about God that it says GOOD !

  It shows how good and bad people are, even more so His chosen people. It plainly mentions even God's fustration with people and peoples frusttration with God !

  Now, some suggest that without the bible people can't know God, this is not true. The bible is simply ONE of the tools we can use.

  Some suggest the bible was just written by man to control other men and so forth BUT if that was the case, then they did a very poor job of it.

  I mean, if YOU were gonna write about a God that you invented, would you write the God you find in the bible?
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  Psac,

  Does it matter to ignore the teaching of Jesus you claim to believe? AGAIN:The golden rule is irrefutably linked with compassion by Jesus in Luke 10 (as I wrote you above). This teaching is called one of the greatest. So why is that law not observed by God himself?

  It may seem tedious of me to write you this again, but I find it tedious of you not to respond or acknowlege the question.

  Maeve

  The golden rule, is to do unto others as you would have them do to you, or to NOT do anything that you would NOT have done to youself.

  It is the beginning, not the end.

  One can follow the golden rule out of sher selfishness if they so choose.

  Compassion is, as I posted the "official definition" above:

  1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

  we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

  they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PSacramento

  1. Are you really saying that the god of christian theism passively observed a growing tsuanmi, knowing full well that it would wipe out a quarter of a million people, because he thought somebody might learn something about compassion?

  No, God uses suffering to develop comapssion in humans. God did NOT create the tsunami and does NOT interfere in the natural events of this world and earthquakes and natural disaters are part of this natural world. The laws of nature of this world are what they are.

  God did not interfere in that event, like He has not interfered in any past event or like He will NOT interfere in any future event because Nature is that way it is, as it has always been and will always be. It falls on us to adapt to thsi world, not for God to adapt this world to Us.

  2. Why have you ignored the valid points that jgnat and I have made about the disconnect between mass suffering and compassion?

  What people do with comapssion is up tp them. While there can be a disconnect that i sbecause people CHOOSE for there to be a disconnect.

  3. Love is an emotion. Wasn't your carpenter "moved with pity"?

  Yes, and what did He do when moved?

  He suffered with Us and died with Us.

  You may not like that lesson or agree with it, but that is the lesson.