h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks Math.

- Jordan

Matholwch,

Certainly not! I was pointing out to Jordan just how daft his position is!

God choose dirty rotten sinners, saves them, sanctifies them, (to their complete astonishment), and uses them in what He is doing as He sees fit. It is nothing whatever to do with the person.

I am not putting anyone's education down. It is not about education at all. God seldom saves or uses educated people, as He clearly says:

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"

Jordan,

Yes, pretty much,though I would not phrase it as you do.

Jesus gave His life for just that. He did not come to start a religion which left you still separated from God by sin.

"These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him."

All Christians (real ones) hear their Father in Heaven speak to them. I thought that that was common knowledge, friend.

Sorry, I miss your point about personifying sin. How do you mean?

Justin

Ah Justin .

But Jordan's position is not 'daft' as you put it. It is a sincerely held belief of one who could teach you some lessons in humility.

Even more importantly it is the sincerely-held belief of a Christian, whom you don't know, but who maybe speaking words given by God to teach you.

I will accept that as a Druid, and in your words 'an enemy of God', you have no real need or desire to listen to me. But what about the Christians here, each of whom has forged a personal relationship to Christ and has been saved? You should listen to them.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Justin,

Why do you bother posting on h2g2, or any other internet message boards? Are you trying to save or convert us? You say debate is blasphemy, yet you are debating with us? What is the point?

Ste

Matholwch,

Yes, really. But you have forgotten that there are different words for fear. One means filial fear,and the other out of terror, etc.

I do fear God, as a son fears his Father. He will chastise me if I get out of order, like any good father does.

The other sort of fear is the dread and terror of Him who is going to punish severely those who love, and wish to keep their sin.

I don't stay with God out of fear of Him, but out of love for Him who made me.

I wonder. I hesitate to pick up on what could easily become a hook, but did your college degree count the scriptures Alji gave you?

Of COURSE there are gaps in my knowledge. I am 18. I have lived as a Christian for just under two years. I am /growing/. You, on the other hand, seem to see yourself as no more than an extension of Jesus.

I ask you, is Jesus a mere extension of God? And what use is it being 'saved' if you are no longer you? If you are simply part of someone else? A resurrected zombie?

And don't try to argue that it's being saved as compared to going to the (contentious) lakes of fire, because in that case God only made us because he wanted to see us punished. Otherwise, he would just have made Jesus and not bothered to make us, because there's no point in making something that's going to be assimilated into something already made, with no qualitative increase in its value.

Speaking of which: since it is evidently impossible for /everyone/ to be saved, why doesn't he simply make a lot of people and just put them on a lake of fire anyway, because free will obviously doesn't feature in your mode of thinking? I'll tell you why: because you are reducing God to a tyrant, to an illogical concept that collapses in the face of reason. Your God is infinitely inferior to mine because at least He is not only merciful (as the scriptures say), but can exist!

It is obvious that you have vast gaps in your ability to use logic. He wants us to be saved as individuals, as ourselves. Otherwise there is no use for distinct entities whom he allows freedom of choice.

Are you still with me, or are you no longer accustomed to logic?

- Jordan

Ste,

"Go into all the world and preach the gospel...."

I don't debate, I state the absolute truth of God. I did not mean, which I am sure you know, that to do that, in obedience to Christ, is blasphemy. It is blasphemy to debate, dispute, or whatever, God's revealed truth.

Justin

Hi Ste .

I think I can answer you there. Justin is a man possessed of doubts, just as Thomas doubted Christ. If he did not doubt he would not debate with us. He needs to find some justification for all the intolerance, fear and pain he believes his God has spoken of to him.

If we react with anger and fear towards him then we actively reinforce his beliefs and satisfy his doubts, for it is all as foretold by his misguided interpretation of Christian scripture. If we anathematise him or ban him, he is triumphant!

However, if we treat him with kindness and respect, listen to him, debate with him calmly, we fall not into the stereotypes that fulfill his fantasies. We widen that gap of doubt over his path in his mind. Why else would he even talk to me, an active pagan and self-declared apostate? To do this is endangering his immortal soul.

As a Druid I am required to heal where I can. So I am pursuing Justin and trying to help him return to the fold of his Shepherd a useful person. Druidry has no need of converts nor any mission to do so. I will be quite happy if he can achieve happiness in a form that doesn't so clearly cause him so much distress.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Isaiah
64:5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
64:7 And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
64:8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
64:9 Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.

James
2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

Justin why don't you believe the Word?


Alji the Magus

Justin.

As a son fears his father?

I did not fear my father, I loved and respected him. I hero worshipped him. My son does not fear me either, he has no reason to.

From where in your life do you get the idea that the father-son relationship should be based upon fear? This is not love, it is abuse. In your apparent ideology it is alright for the father to say "Fear me or die".

Freud would have a field day with you if that is truly what you meant.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Nice one Alji the magi!

Knew I could rely on you with the scripture.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

'God choose dirty rotten sinners, saves them, sanctifies them, (to their complete astonishment), and uses them in what He is doing as He sees fit. It is nothing whatever to do with the person.'

That is /disgusting/. It jars, violently and incongruously with all that God has ever said. What was the point of the commandments? If it has nothing to do with the person, the commandments are truly useless. There is no point in my doing right and not murdering and not stealing, because I am going to be damned anyway. I may as well go out, kill my father and my mother on the Sabbath because I coveted their money, using their dead bodies as idols to worship Satan whilst dancing about taking the Lord's name in vain. All, of course, after having married and commiting adultery.

You come here simply to tell us that none of us are saved. Is this your purpose? Because it really doesn't matter if I pray for guidance (the Bible obviously got this wrong), because I'm damned unless, by some arbitrary and pointless quirk of fate, I am saved - to go out and tell people the same thing.

How can man ever aim to achieve something if there is no point to any of his actions? Where in the heavens or the earth is the reason for this?

I am genuinely scared. For you, Justin. I am afraid that your soul is so far lost, it can never be found again. You can have no idea how this feels.

- Jordan

Juston
The question was hypothetical
Would you loving me consign me to a nasty fate, does that make it easier to answer.

Jordan,

I took it you had to be young, as you name is current for new born children. I am 47 by the way, and I was born again by the grace of God 17 years ago.

I think you misunderstand, Jordan. You are to become like Jesus. You are 'you' but you will have been changed so dramatically that, whilst you look the same, you bear the character, the traits of the family of God, as people do to their natural families.

In one sense you are an extension of God. "Christ in us the hope of glory."

If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and if you are not you are not yet a Christian, Rom.8:9, you are part of the body of Christ, and in contact with Him who is the Head.

You have not taken on board what I have just told you. All human beings are infected with sin at conception. It is the sin which is the problem.

God is saving out for Himself a people, from the people of the world. He takes a sinner and makes them a saint. 'Saint' is just shorthand for 'born again Christian' in the Bible, never mind what the pope religion teaches.

It is possible for all to be saved, but not all will. Most prefer their own way, setting their own standards, and keeping their right to being lords of their own lives. God is saving out a people for Himself, as I said.

I am not reducing God to anything, I would not dare. I am telling you however that the God of the Bible is not the one you think He is.

The things of God are not by logic, they are by faith.

"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight." Intellect, logic,etc, are weak and beggarly tools for dealing with spiritual things.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Justin

'lright Math

I pretty much agree with all you said. Yet I think you are being overly optimistic with our poor misguided friend. I think logic, reason and the ability to debate has left him, as Hoo pointed out, he is barely conscious. I think it would be pointless to try and argue with him as he simply does not have the intellectual capacity for argument, which he has amply demonstrated. I find it massively depressing that people like Justin exist.

From now on the only reason I will engage him is to find out what makes him tick. Hopefully I'll find some sort of neurological disorder that will reinstate my faith in humanity and label him as a "special" case. Which is a real possibility given the evidence he has provided so far.



Justin:

"Go into all the world and preach the gospel...."
So, have you been to the Antartic to preach to the penguins, as the bible clearly states (...to all creatures..., ...into all the world...).

Your presence here in a forum for debate (this has been a particularly good one) means that everything you post is questioned, analysed and yes, DEBATED. You are entering into debate, like it or nor, mean it or not.

Ste

Jordan,

Really? Would you like to make your case from the Word of God for that?

There are no good human beings, in and of themselves.

"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, there is none righteous, no not one."

The point of the commandments? Easy...

"By the Law is the knowledge of sin"

You should also read the second half of Rom.7. When the Law comes and says, 'you will do this', something in the natural human heart rises up and says 'I darn well won't!'. That thing that rises up is SIN, that is what the problem is. That has to be put to death. You must be born again.

You will be saved by God, as and when He chooses, and not before. Seek Him out, Himself. Religion about Him is useless.

Don't be scared for me. It is me that should be scared for you. However I know God, and know all is under His control.

Why are you not, if you are a Christian as you say, reading your Bible with understanding?

Justin

Just In

Sorry I haven't heard many people here rejecting Jesus.
You may be imagining it.
Jesus is love
God is love
Love does not cause suffering
God is not wrathful.
Wrath is anger
Anger is an emotion born of fear
God is not fear.
God feels no fear
God feels no anger
God is not wrathful
God is love.
There are many words you say that do not feel like God, so you're right I shoud ignore your words and listen to Gods.

I think you have quite a lot in common with members of Al quada, did you know that? My conversations with them and the questions I asked, were answered in a voice that sounds very like you
When the stoning of woman caught in adultary (presumably men are innocent in this act) is law, will I have to wear a burqua too?
Where will you have your own training camp if you haven't got one already, to bring us lot to the ways you interpret are Gods?

Jordan
Can you see how some of us were frightened away from Christianity?
Can you see how dreadful this rigid thinking is and how frightening?

I agree with Matholwch. I refuse to believe that he is so lost. Though you might be right about the 'special' category, Ste. Noggin would agree with you.

Speaking of which, where ever is Noggin? Is he laughing in the eaves? (A phrase which conjours up images of Noggin hanging bat-like from a roof outside the window... )

Justin:

SIN. You capitalise the word or the first letter: Sin. You give it real, independent value outwith the person commiting it. You sound like a Scientologist. Have you got any thetans you wish to dispel with today, Justin?

I'm going to wait and see if you manage to respond to my last post logically, and then to Alji's many references.

God would never, /ever/ tell us to discard with logic. Faith lights my fire; logic builds my house. God would not give us talents which he did not want us to have. Again, what do you make of the parable of the talents?

- Jordan