Etrernal life is not dependant upon praise or worship only belief in His son Jesus Christ, that he was alive, was crucified and ressurected by God his Father and that people confess Jesus Christ as their "lord" meaning the lord, boss, head, master of their life.

As you say you are not qualified to make such a judgement on how God determines things and makes judgments.

The problem lies in the fact that all on this forum have a wrong impression and understanding of God, which has been built into their believing by society and their parents, ect.

You all have learned wrongly and error regarding God and the bible and therefore your vision and perception is skewed, any comments you make regarding the subject of God or the bible come from a skewed and distorted and error filled belief and understanding of the whole subject.

This is the problem that you all are dealing with unfortunatley, your glasses have muck on them and need to be steam cleaned.

So these things were okay 2500 years ago? Did God change his mind? Or was he wrong the first time?

Something is not correct just because it is written down, no. But I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about anecdotal evidence.

Wow, another impressive dodge. Well done. But I think we're close. Here, I'll try again:


Is it petty for God to value 1) belief in His son Jesus Christ, that he was alive, was crucified and ressurected by God his Father and that people confess Jesus Christ as their "lord" meaning the lord, boss, head, master of their life over 2) humans being nice and kind and generous to each other.

No im not. But i do get to speculate just like you on if there is A God how he would judge us.

Are you serious? The old testament law was written for the people of that time, the Israelites. It was appropriate for the time...I cannot break down the whole word of God and explain it all to you in a few posts. I am sorry for that, if I could I would.

Times changed, people changed, events happened and more appropriate things are now in place.

Its not about being petty, thats not the point even though you are trying to make it the point, eternal life revolves around belief, not kindness or generousness.

Being kind and generous is not how eternal life is recieved, believing is.

Believing is not valued over these qualities its just a spiritual law that supercedes these, there are 3 main spiriual laws, Believing, Love and Hope.

Love, true love, Gods love cannot be lived without knowing what Gods love is, which is written in the word. So believing is the path to love, its the way to understand and know what true love is.

Mans love is based on emotions, Gods love is much higher than that, emotions cause irrational behavior, they are not bad, they are good but they have to be kept in check by something greater, the love of God.

The difference is I am not speculating, I am believing what He God says in His word, there is a difference.

Yes i understand you speak for God in a definitive way.

So what should I be following if that part of the Lord's word is wrong for me?

Nothing just believe and feel free to rape and pillage to your harts content.

Hey Pletho! We're really getting somewhere now. You've come really close. Let's go through it!


Ok, so we acknowledged that belief is more important than kindness or generosity to God. Now I can accept that we should not use the word "petty", that's fine, leave that word out. If God is all-loving, why would he value our belief in him over our love, kindness and generosity for our fellow man?

But what do you think of that? Do you think that is evidence of love?

This is just semantics. When God sets the rules, and he sets one "spiritual law" as having an ultimate reward over the others, then I think it is fair to say that God values that spiritual law over the others.

[/quote]Love, true love, Gods love cannot be lived without knowing what Gods love is, which is written in the word. So believing is the path to love, its the way to understand and know what true love is.[/quote]

Well, let's accept that for a minute. Let's accept that believing is a good thing. And let's accept that God really likes when we believe in him. If he had to choose, wouldn't a supremely loving God prefer us to love and be kind and generous to each other (his children) over us just plain believing in him?

I've used the word "petty" because it seems so much less important. I'm using my reference point as a father. While I want both my children to love and be nice to me, it is still MORE important to me that they treat each other well, and other people well, than treat me well.

I do praise my son when he's nice to me. But I really go crazy with praise when he does something nice for his sister. They are both good things, but I value him being nice to others over him being nice to me. Why would god be so selfish as to value our believing him him over being kind and generous to his other children?

But the lesson God is giving here is that I don't value you being good and kind to each other as much as I value your believing in me. It's kinda a mixed message dontcha think if we're supposed to then go back and derive be nice to each other from that...

Blah blah blah, Pletho once again fails to understand belief is not a choice.

None of it until you get past this verse:

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Once this happens then the following books are written specifically to the Christian.

Romans
I & II Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
I & II Thessalonians

The Gospels are not written specifically to the Christian they are for our learning, they are still apart of the old testament, the law was still in effect during the Gospel period, after the day of Pentecost the Law was no longer in effect and new time, a new administration started the Grace administration, the law administration was fullfilled and ended by Jesus Christ.

God is a figment of your imagination, therefore he does have a beginning and ending.

I dont have that great of a imagination, sorry.

Am I serious? Um, wow. Okay. What was different 2500 years ago that made torture, murder, and rape okay? Am I serious?

At least it's an admission that wherever our modern moral impulses come from, they quite clearly do NOT come from religion.

Yes you do.

C'mon Pletho, don't leave me hanging! We're so close to an actual answer here. Please respond to my post #163.

Thanks

There is no fallacy because there is only one definition of faith: belief not based in proof. Confidence in truth value, trustworthiness etc. is just exactly that: confidence. I have a book recommendation for you: The Oxford Dictionary.

Really. So what is this "understanding" that the "reasonable assumption" is based upon? I'm going to ask you what I asked him, how do you come with 1M:1? (What's everybody's obsession with this number, anyway?) And now I'll ask you, why is it a reasonable assumption that this will be possible in ~20 years time? What evidence points towards this? Are you looking at the exponentially increasing rate of technological advancement, and advances in nanotechnology? If so, great. Now please point to what specifically leads you to believe that in ~20 years time we can achieve the feat of recreating life from base atoms after we've reduced them to to those base atomic components.

We're still unfathomably far from the next challenge... I won't trouble you with the details of that one.

Only between the OT and NT, of course. Obviously times haven't changed, people haven't changed, and events haven't happened since the NT. If they had, he'd have to write a whole 'nother book for us.

Everything is exactly as it was when God wrote the NT!

According to my Oxford Dictionary, there are several definitions of faith, including 1. complete trust or confidence, and 2. firm belief, especially without logical proof, which seem to correspond to the two definitions cited by Deorum.

And as for specific reasons to believe that life can be created from base atoms in the next 20 years - you've already cited more than enough. There is no claim that this will be accomplished within 20 years - just that it has (according to some) a better than 1 in a million chance.

If I recall, the reason for those odds was already explained. To some, it exceeds the probability of success, and to you, it falls far short - so both sides should be prepared to wager.

We have to pick nits here. If the entry for #1 requires proof, evidence or "reasons to believe" of any kind, then it doesn't mean what it says it means.