Humans learn everything through a growth process. With that comes a cycle of failure.

Failures proceed a lot of successes and we learn more from our failures than our successes.

In the bible it shows that God allows failure to precede success.

Dr. Stephen E. Jones talks about it here. See The Israel Vinyard section:

http://gods-kingdom-ministries.org/f...le.cfm?AID=169

Hmm, what I meant to ask is since the Prophets are human and make mistakes, wouldn't the Bible have errors in it since the only person who is perfect God?

I know there are translations errors and that's from human error.

There are prophets that have made mistakes in their conduct in the bible like the lying prophets in the OT and Jonah going against God's will in the book of Jonah.

Personally I think you can see the evolution of a people under God's hand because when you read the Psalms there are some imprecatory prayers rather like curses where people request God curse their enemies.

But isn't the cursing a thing of the past for the most part today? Jesus Christ took people to the next level and said "love your enemies".

The bible's a growth book. I don't think you see God's failures in it really just people's failures. I would say that God lets people grow up and learn from other people's failures in the bible.

Isn't it better and a sign of intelligence if you're not so hardheaded and can learn from observing another's failure than experience the failure yourself?

Yes, because if I'm wrong, when I croak I'll spend eternity in hell. If you're wrong you'll just cease to exist and won't know anything about it.

Speaking of taking a 'safe position', tell me this ..

Let's assume for a moment that God does exist. How confident are you that tenets and doctrines of the Christian faith are the correct ones, and that the Jewish and Islamic tenets and doctrines (for example), are not? And on what exactly do you base that confidence? If God does exist, I would think you'd need to make sure you're on the right horse .. The penalty if you get it wrong is severe is it not?

Well, I'm a Christian universalist though I used to hold the traditional view of hell but I recognized all my motives on religious questions are all from love not fear.

I really don't even like to entertain the idea of fear as an option.

I'm more fearful of disrespecting God or of living a lie than I am of hell. So if I ever do sound fearful that's probably my piety creeping in.

I really would hate to face eternity knowing I failed to respect God in any way. Though I suspect any failures I have in this world will be erased and forgotten in the next one.

I feel very confident the bible is the right text. I also think it's very sublime of God to reveal Himself because philosophy drew my attention to an interesting point: unless God reveals Himself we can't know anything specific about Him though maybe we could sense something in a blind psychic sort of way.

Oh btw, Jesus Christ saves us from death not hell.

Death follows the law of sin not hell.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If there is no hell, then what am I saved from?

If God will ultimately save all people, then why not just eat, drink, be merry and sin to my heart’s content, as my salvation is already guaranteed?

If God will ultimately save all people, then what is the point of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross?

If God will ultimately save all people, then why bother evangelising?


Explanation here:
http://www.godsplanforall.com/evangelism


There are spiritual laws just like there are natural laws of science:
There is a law that frees us from the law of sin and death. This law is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Rom. 8:1

Would you please expound on this simile?

Paul says the law is spiritual in the New Testament.

He also says:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death.

Footnotes:
a. Romans 8:2 The Greek is singular; some manuscripts me

Of course some people interpret a profound difference between the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Laws.

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/1104...oke-of-bondage

Quote from article above:

Many Christians have not yet seen the difference between
the Mosaic Law (The added law of Galatians 3:19)
and The Ten Commandments. It is a serious error to suggest
that The Ten Commandments are one with the ceremonial law.
James calls The Ten Commandments "the law of liberty"
(James 2:10-12) and Paul calls the Mosaic law "the yoke
of bondage":

Not to mention the national law. Practical things like crime, punishment and property rights.

I think in Jesus' mind, scientific laws are a joke. (kinda)

"Oh ye men of little faith." Like as if Peter is a fool for not thinking he could walk on water.

But this really is the unexplored, unattained, so who knows....

Perhaps he has a higher law in his mind that he's referencing from the Torah, that overrides everything else.

Deut 4:2 “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

(I know, this doesn't address the water issue...but...)

I try one more time .. what is this confidence based on?

It's based on familiarity with the text.

Familiarity brings divine revelation which in turn brings more familiarity....

God is love. When you accept that fact you've accepted the greatest divine revelation and you can settle down and let the text open to you.

Roger Sperry said:

"I have never been entirely satisfied with the materialistic or behavioristic thesis that a complete explanation of brain function is possible in purely objective terms with no reference whatever to subjective experience; i.e., that in scientific analysis we can confidently and advantageously disregard the subjective properties of the brain process. I do not mean we should abandon the objective approach or repeat the errors of the earlier introspective era. It is just that I find it difficult to believe that the sensations and other subjective experiences per se serve no function, have no operational value and no place in our working models of the brain."

Sperry compares the activity of the human mind to quantum physics:

In his 1965 paper entitled "Mind, Brain and Humanist Values," Sperry proposed that subjective experience plays a principal role in brain function. He posited that behaviorism and reductionism must both be replaced by a new concept of consciousness, based on the ideas of emergence and downward causation. The concept of emergence, according to Sperry, "occurs whenever the interaction between 2 or more entities, be they subparticles, atoms or molecules, creates a new entity with new laws and properties formerly nonexistent in the universe." He notes the parallel with quantum physics in which "interactions among subatomic particles result in emergent properties which in no way resemble the particles from which they arose." It is important to emphasize that Sperry did not see this as dualism, which treats the mind as a separate entity outside the brain that is capable of existing independently of it. Nor did he accept the term "psychophysical interaction," suggested by Popper and Eccles in 1977. Sperry pointed out in "Holding Course Amid Shifting Paradigms" (1994) that the erroneous classification of this conception is probably based on an earlier terminology in which "mentalism" was equated with dualism. He describes his reasons for retaining the term mentalism in preference to Bunge's (1977) "emergent materialism" or Natsoulas's (1987) "physical monism," emphasizing that this new form of mentalism must be viewed as a "quite different intermediate position which is monistic, not dualistic."

Quotes above from a bio on Sperry:
http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/rsperry.html

When you look at split brain research is it any wonder people reason to different conclusions:
http://ibpsychology.wetpaint.com/pag...Brain+Research

Hmm. I play poker differently...

I put my opponent on a range of hands based on real world evidence and observation. I then call or fold based on the mathematically probability he actually has a particular hand that beats me compared to what's in the pot and what it costs me to call.

If anything, I lean towards skepticism at the table and am considered a payoff wizard

Sorry Jumping so far backwards, going to bed now and cba to read the rest of this stagnant thread.
If I touched a cross and instantly got into an accident I would sooner believe God caused the accident, than that God saved me from the accident, but I guess you know it was God that saved you because God is good, and we know God is good since he saved you (and the book says so).
The jerking out of the hand sounds like perhaps he hit a bump (put there by Satan LDO) or perhaps even just what happens when a car begins to skid. I am not sure about the last option I have been playing it scenario in my head and can't quite decide what sort of forces would be acting on the steering wheel as you begin the skid, I think not enough to JERK it left any more than the wheel wants to turn left when not skidding. So hitting a bump seems like the most likely way.

This obviously supports your theory though since the Devil doesn't have the power to just reach out and grab the wheel, he can make pot holes though!

Nice imagination.

There was no pothole.

Splendour, what's more likely, that (1) there was a pothole or something that you're overlooking or missed that caused the swerving of the car or (2) that the very laws of nature themselves were suspended in your favor?

Sorry this thread is over a year and a half old.

I'm not revisiting it because someone resuscitated it.

It's over and done with.

Just like this life once I leave it.

God is going to resuscitate me and I'm never going to want to return to this life. I've got something better to do.

I was responding to a post of yours that was less than two hours old. But I suppose if you think that a MIRACLE is more likely than you overlooking something, then well...I can see why you want this thread buried.

I don't feel like re-reading the thread.

I just don't see why someone who wasn't there should be able to ascribe factors to a situation that didn't occur.

If you're sitting on a jury and the jury recesses to consider the facts of the case do the jurors get to change the facts?

No they don't. And if they do you should pay attention to it.

The bible at the end of the Book of Revelation says not "to add to the words of the book"....

If you're adding things that aren't realistically relevant how can you arrive at the truth?

All you did is take someone else's story and corrupt it.

Why does some human being who wasn't even there get to re-write "my true life story"?

If you don't understand why your witness account is considered to be compromised during an accident then I really don't know what else to say.

Just stop.

If I listened to you I'd never be able to do anything real in life.

You can study Myers/Briggs personality types.

Some people are naturally more realistic while some are more imaginative.

It makes you wonder why there's an imbalance.

But Christians have always said the Gospels are an account of God's reality.

Imo all you're doing is fooling yourself into upsetting the God intended order of things by your pursuit of philosophy.

Of course, God could be tolerating that to allow you to learn how to think.

Who do you really think the best philosopher in the world is anyways?

It's God. He established government, law and order and religion to guide people while their minds are evolving.

Don't people have to constantly adjust to new knowledge in this world? Is that adjusting ever going to stop? No not unless you get fixated on negative things and go the wrong way in your own mind.

Study up on the topic of "forgiveness". Doesn't the brotherly love ability to forgive act like a patch on relationships.

If people couldn't forgive (make peace) then we'd be at war constantly.

The human race seems to be getting better at making peace initiatives but we still have problems with it. Look at Netanyahu in the Middle East. Isn't he a hawk because that crazy terrorist Aminejad is constantly making statements advocating the annihilation of Israel?

Religion is a mind/body/relationship problem.

You should try getting in sync with it instead of cherrypicking against it all the time.

There might of been an on-topic sentence in there somewhere.