[Mr 5 0]

Originally posted by bigwhitecobra :

If God in all His glory, was to interfere with the creation of the Bible, doesn't that deny the greatest gift of all? The gift of Choice?

Men were given the the power to choose right from wrong, left from right, front from back, and so on. God made us to mess up. He knows we are going to mess up, so how can you tell me that God made sure that His word, the Bible, was unmolested? Especially when man was taking notes?

I can tell you that because God inspired the bible to be His instruction manual for His creation: mankind. His. God's. It was not left to mere men to decide what to say in God's name, right or wrong while God sat back and watched men lie about Him and His instructions for us. Can't you grasp that? The bible is God's creation, not man's. Because it was written by men and the Catholic religion fooled around with it in the early centuries of Christianity many think that the bible is simply a creation of man - with all the errors man would be prone to. It is not. If it was simply a book by men about God, it would be useless and worthless. It isn't, because the bible is a book from God to men - not from men about God. You are denying the bible's Divine inspiration. A common error.

I never said that the Bible was a lie. Nor did I say that it was Garbage. I said that I believe that it is exagerated. No more no less. I don't deny that Jesus performed miracles. But you have to take a look at the time period that these miracles took place and how desprated these people were to have something to believe in. Jesus promissed that when they died, they would assend into heaven, where the streets were paved with gold, and so on. Hell, I'd want to follow Him to the ends of the Earth and then some. I do now. But let's be a little more realistic.

When people talk about the Holy Bible and Jesus, then say: "let's be realistic" I know what's coming. A denial of the power of God. How sad that someone taking the name 'Christian' denies God's power and calls the bible an 'exaggeration'. You should be ashamed to be using the name of Jesus with one breath while you deny His power with the next and defame holy scripture, which is what the Christianity you profess is based on. Something I think you are clueless about.

Jesus turned water into wine, cool. Magicians do that same trick today, and people believe that the guy on stage is really doing it. Hell, I can turn water into Kool-Aid in mere seconds, doesn't make it a miracle. I don't deny that Jesus turn water into wine in front of a bunch of people at a wedding. All I am saying is that there are plenty of ways to do the same thing, in front of a live audience.

So Jesus was basically a fraud and little more than a magic act? You are coming close to blasphemy here and I regret that you can't even see what you're doing with your casual dismissal of the miracles of Christ. How about the raising of the dead, like Lazarus, who had been dead for days and was beginning to decompose? Another trick from that crafty Jesus? Magic act stuff? What an entertainer! This is the being you claim to follow? A fake doing tricks to entertain people? God help you in your disbelief. I mean that.

Doctors bring people back from the dead everyday, granted, they don't just touch them and bam they're healed. But they do heal people. Miracle or not, it happens. Not to take anything away from Jesus. He gave the blind sight, the crippled could walk, the lepors were healed, you know it better than me.

You so miss the point that it's ridiculous. Jesus raised the dead. Doctors can't do that, not when the dead person has been dead for days. Doctors can't heal people who have been paralyzed since birth, or the blind from birth, as Jesus did, many, many times. When Jesus healed it was instant and permanent, not a 'maybe' or a 'let's hope'-style healing. To even begin to compare - on any level - the miracles of Jesus with modern-day doctors and magicians is simply absurd. Stop. Please. It's just pitiful.

All that I am saying is that from a certain point of veiw anything is a miracle. You just have to sort through the non sense to find true meaning. Does that mean that I am completely wrong in regards to the Bible? I don't know. Maybe. What I believe is based partly on faith, and partly on human history.

No part of the bible is 'nonsense'. I believe the 'faith' part you refer to is woefully small in your case. It's unfortunate that you rely more on 'human history' than the power of God and Jesus, which is the focus of the bible.

People believe what they are told to believe. Who killed JFK? Was it Oswald? Was it the FBI? Personally, I say it was the guy that pulled the trigger, whom ever it was. So why should the Bible be any different?

How sad. You're talking just like every angry atheist I've ever known. That's because you refuse in any way to accept the bible as the Word of God and want to take it as a mere book written by men. Look at the tangent you get off on here:

It's a way of controlling the masses, as it is written. The church wants you to concentrate on what they want you to concentrate on. The church doesn't like gay marrage, so you shouldn't either. The church doesn't like abortion, so you better not either. History is filled will religious fanatics forcing thier will on others. Some of the bloodiest, most brutal wars were fought based on religious hatred. All because someone gave the wrong answer to the God Question.
"Do you believe in God?"
"No"
bang dead
"Do you believe in God?"
"Yeah"
"Do you believe in MY God?"
"No"
bang dead

Ah. The old: 'religion kills more people than anything else' argument. You MUST be a 'closet atheist', right? Look, my non-believing friend: more people have died under God-less regimes run by brutal men than have died under any 'religious' war in human history. It's clear that you don't really understand what you are saying here. Josef Stalin's communist regime murdered some 60 million people. Communist China's Mao Zedong murdered some 50 million and that death toll keeps going up. Both were hardcore atheists who did not allow any hint of any religion to exist while they were in power, which was decades. No 'religious' war ever came close to taking that many lives, so don't tell anyone who knows a bit of even recent history about how 'religion' has killed more people than anything else. That's a lie. Stop spreading it. Atheists have killed more than anyone else when they had the power to do so, as in Communist Russia and China.

Religion isn't so much about believing in what a book tells you to believe, but believing that God loves you, and created everything for you. He gave His Son for you. His Son loves you, and wants you to love Him for the grace He so freely gave to us.

Get caught up in a book if you want to, but you might miss the whole point of being here. Books come and go, but God is here forever.

Christianity isn't a 'religion', it's a lifestyle, and all the things you just mentioned; God's love, his role as Creator and the fact of Jesus' birth, ministry,voluntary suffering and death on the cross asa well as His resurrection and the God's grace of offering Jesus as exculpation for our sins, all the knowledge you have of those things come from the bible. The sacred book you claim is 'an exaggeration' written by mere men to 'control' people. What hogwash. You only know the things you know about God and Jesus because - no matter who told originally taught them to you - they came from God's Word...the bible. That book you foolishly claim we shouldn't be 'caught up' in - which makes no sense at all. Your denial of it's power as the Holy Word of God is truly sad and shows a gross misunderstanding of what scripture is and what it means. From where do you derive your basis for what you claim to believe about God and Christ, not to mention your moral code? Your own 'personal interpretation' of scripture? Good luck. I don't see you lasting long as a 'Christian' in a world that is openly hostile to what you claim you believe. You have no real basis for your beliefs and you won't even admit that obvious fact but instead, make ridiculous comments about what a miracle is. Here's a hint: it's doing something beyond human limitations to do. Jesus did that regularly, including raising the dead, curing every type of disease known at the time and even providing food for 5,000 people from a few loaves of bread and a few fish. Wise up.

I've attempted, as a Christian believer, to point out your unfortunate error in dismissing the validity of the bible, as atheists do (you sound just like them in many ways...you've obviously been influenced by them at some point) but you choose to blithly ignore whatever doesn't fit what you've chosen to believe and what you're obviously now comfortable with. You apparently think that Christianity is just God wanting everyone to 'be happy' all the time, as long as you acknowledge Him, which is naive and again, shows almost no understanding of what Jesus taught. I can't change what you've chosen to buy into but I can tell you that it's in very sharp conflict with fundamental Christianity, to put it mildly. You deny the supremacy of God's Word and try to compare Jesus' miracles to modern-day entertainers and doctor's operations. How sad - and how bibically ignorant that is. I don't wish to insult you but some of your statements here are simply bizarre and I cannot comment on them with anything less than incredulity and amazement at your shallowness in your understanding of scripture.

I believe you are trying to combine what you claim to believe about God and Christ with the world's jaded and negative view of 'religion' and the bible. That never works. Jesus warned that you cannot serve Two Masters. You can't buy into the secular world's rejection of the bible as a book with no real power, much less being directly from God, and still try to claim Christ as your savior when you deny the one, original place He is always called Savior and where He claims the nature of God: the bible. Both Jesus and the bible are take-it-or-leave-it propositions. Jesus isn't 'sort of' our savior and the bible isn't half-true and really just a book written to 'control' us. How can a book you reject as written by mere men 'control' anyone? It cannot, unless you acknowledge that it's power is from God, not a bunch of long-dead men trying to 'control the masses' - classic atheist dogma - and you willingly repeat it here, just like any hardcore atheist would. It's sad but we all make our choices as people with Free Will. Your's denies the bible - the very source of Christianity - yet you continue to claim to be a 'Christian'. How, I don't know, as you deny the basis of what Christianity was founded on. You're kidding yourself here but I can see you will remain unswayed in your non-belief so I won't burn up any more of the site's bandwidth to keep telling you the same things while you reply with ridiculous comparisons and inane statements about scripture and Jesus' power. I have better things to do, as I'm sure you do. You've honestly made your beliefs known and I've attempted to show you the error of those beliefs and bibical denials. I can do no more. That being the case, you are free to have the 'last word' in this lengthy exchange as I have nothing more to add other than to hope (and pray) that someday before it's too late you'll awake to the folly of your denials and accept the bible for what it is and what it says. As always, that will be your choice and someday when you stand before God, as we all will, you will have the opportunity to answer for it - as we all will answer to Him for our acceptance or rejection of Him and His Word.

I wish you well as you - one fervently hopes - grow in your faith.