LittleToe,
It's strange but I really don't see you as someone with
no hidden agenda's, no falsehood, no dishonesty, no unfairness, just a simple love of God and neighbour.
I see you instead as someone who is immodest, who lacks humility and sincerity, and who thinks a lot more of himself than he ought to think. You brag about yourself and put others down, and you do it without any sense of shame.
You know deep down in your heart that you are being as deliberately deceptive as the devil when you make statements like the following:
On the subject of Milleniums of belief. It seems strange that Jesus and the Apostles had to clear up some misunderstandings. Are you saying that you are content with an understanding that is over 3,000 years old, and are trying to pick and choose what parts of the New Testament fit your perspective? I'm just curious, please elucidate.
There can be no love of truth in you at all, LittleToe. You know what I wrote, and it was simple enough for a child to understand. But just like the way you generally read the Scriptures, you try to read into and distort most of what others have to say.
Jesus and the apostles never changed the Jewish belief regarding Genesis 1:26, no matter how much you wish they had. I illustrated for you that the writer of Hebrews confirmed what the Jews always believed about angels and men in the image of God. But you can't accept what a Bible writer says. You pick and choose what you want to accept anywhere in the Bible, and then you try to hide what you do and blame others instead. I can think of you as no different than the Pharisees who you seem to have chosen as your role models. They also thought highly of themselves. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see you someday on a street corner blowing a trumpet as you pray to yourself, "Thank God I'm such a nice guy, not like so many other people I know." (Matthew 6:2; Luke 11:18)
The following statement is another illustration of your blatant hypocrisy:
You see, the point that you really seem to be missing, with me, is that I'm quite happy for you to believe what you will. That really is your prerogative.
If that was really the way you feel, you wouldn't be sticking with this discussion as you have been. You wouldn't be presenting a defense of your pagan religion so vigourously and with so many illogical arguments - arguments you use simply because you can't think of anything that is really solid scripturally and factually. Again, your hypocrisy is seen by claiming a failure on my part - that I'm missing something that you know quite well is really not there.
You wrote:
Oh, and btw, your cartoons do nothing to bolster an image of love, nor a respect for others opinions.
That sounds so much like Luke 11:45: "One of the experts in the Mosaic Law answered him, 'Teacher, in saying this, you reproach and outrage and affront even us!"
UnD,
You wrote:
I have no problem with Herk believing whatever he/she wants to believe.
That statement is as true as saying the moon is made of green cheese. If you really have no problem, you wouldn't be whining and complaining so much and trying so hard with your illogical and unscriptural methods to defend your pagan system of belief.
As for your response to the cartoons, I see a similarity in Luke 11:45.
Unlike you and LittleToe, I really care whether or not you believe the truth of the Bible. You may continue to persist in the discussion for your admitted wrong reasons, but on the other hand my hope and prayer is that someday your eyes will be opened to the fact that you at the present time are subject to "deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." (1 Timothy 4:1)
Sometimes it amazes me that ordinary people like yourselves can't see the difference. Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the prophets never made references to a triune God. They believed as Jesus did, that Israel's God is One, not Three. They never worshipped "the Word" or "the Holy Spirit," and they made very little mention of them. Such a belief was not demonic. But the demons haven't been sleeping. Just as they often saw to the corruption of the ancient Jewish system of worship, they've been busy tampering with Christian beliefs and practices. Persons ought to be suspicious when their own beliefs don't agree with what was the scriptural teaching about God for many centuries.
Herk
