Grunching.

Welcome brother! The best advice I can give is to get in your Bible. Arm yourself with God's word, and be discerning. Be well!

Astute observation.

I very much do need Jesus and God in my life. Without them I might not even be here.

Thanks man, you too.

why do you need jesus and god in your life is the question?

Because without them I would be deluding myself and living a trapped life inside of my head. That probably sounds strange.

Could you be any more obtuse? Where are you living life if not in your own head?

No problem. My post was a little *******ish anyway.
Its not just about sleeping around. Even if you are in a long term monogamous relationship many Christians would say any sex outside of holy matrimony is a sin.

My point was that I would be debilitated by my past condition if it weren't for God.

Jesus said nothing about sex before marriage. Adultery and perversion he does talk about though.

Adultery is defined by some Christians to mean any sex outside of Gods blessing in marriage. But alright fair enough that pretty much answers my question.

Why bother starting a thread if all your answers are going to be so vague that they're meaningless to anyone reading them but yourself?

Well, what is it you want to know Janabis?

My short comings have cost me friendships, opportunities, and my own well-being. The spiritual and mental regeneration that has taken place in me over the last two weeks has wiped clean 23 years of unhealthy behaviour. The process was initiated by God against my will three years ago after five years of reading, living, and failing to comprehend. I attribute my survival to him and the kindness he showed to me three years ago and has continued to show to me to this day. He is patient and loving, which I have not been, but now understand and will try to become. Ask me any question you have, I am more than happy to attempt an answer.

What do you think of the terrible things that are in the bible? For example where it says to kill homosexuals and disobedient children, the parts where it justifies slavery, the parts where God orders genocide, its sexist views on gender roles, etc?

How so? What is your criteria? Is it a mean mug kind of thing? Do you think it might be possible for you to be wrong? Have you ever misjudged a person who is actually a Christian for a non-Christian?

Also, you view any non-Christian as "degenerate"? What about those that dedicate their lives to the charity and service of others? Those that are selfless and loving? Are they obviously degenerate too? Would their degenerate sin effervesce off of them in seconds, as you see them helping the needy?

I think it's likely that they were written by men living in primitive societies.

It requires you to be able to judge a person's intentions. There are very few people who are both selfless and loving, "Christian" or non-Christian alike.

Should not their degenerate sinful nature prevent them from being selfless and loving? If the source of love is not within them?

Someone could be selfless and at the same time be the most self absorbed person in the world, through my understanding of selflessness that is. Doing nice things for other people does not necessarily mean you love them. Someone who wants to be accepted will do nice things for others and run at the first moment they feel threatened. This is not born out of love or understanding, it's born out of a lack of understanding for yourself and your desire to be loved. When you don't understand yourself you will naturally try to understand other people, but you will fail, and you will either come to the conclusion that you are inferior or that you are superior. In either case love will be impossible and your best intentions will work to undermine you.

This is my opinion too. How do you distinguish between divinely inspired things in the bible and the stuff that is so clearly not? I haven't been able to make much sense of the bible. Where would be a good place for someone like me to start?

The Gospels are a good place to start, the Gospel of Thomas included. Works that can be attributed to Paul are also good as he actually had fellowship with those that knew Jesus and who also lived with him while he was ministering here.

The best way to judge if something is correct is to understand how it makes you feel and why.

Well, to be blunt but honest, you frankly do not have a correct understanding of what selflessness actually is...if you believe this. It seems more like you are defining 'charitable', or 'giving'. But "selfless" is neither. Being selfless is having no concern for oneself, and as a result acting purely for the benefit of other human beings.

Also, you do not seemed to have addressed the "loving" part of my question. Although these two concepts are similar, love is of particular importance in Christianity. Jesus/God are what instill humans with love. And you've hinted at this earlier by saying that love 'came into you' after you started believing in Jesus. And you seemed to be implying that non-Christians lack it in the first post I quoted. So with these clarifications...do you think that non-Christians can be selfless and loving, or is it impossible? And if they are capable of these qualities, how is that not in conflict with your belief that you need Jesus to have them?

We have a different understanding of the word, that's fine.

And I have never met a person that was truly loving that did not have a relationship with God. I believe people can do a lot of good things for themselves without God, but under the surface they are vulnerable and because of that they will keep breaking down until they find him, let emptiness take them, or they grow old and die. Most people live this way, and they are fine with it. It isn't even understood as something that is bad because they are incapable of discerning what is missing and how much they are hurting themselves.

This is great advice.

This is incorrect belief. Especially for a proclaimed "Christian". In the Biblical epoch, there was no term for "homosexuality" because it pretty much was nonexistent. The reason is because in Genesis, the city known as Sodom and Gomorrah, was a homosexual and sexually deviant city, which was destroyed by God. Paul says clearly that people degraded themselves so bad that God "gave them in" to "unnatural" desires for one another of the same sex. When one is given in to something, they are under the control of something. This is perhaps why some scientists today say homosexuality is "not a choice" or "genetic". And we must also take note that science is our observation of reality from our perspective and senses. Since God gave them in, God can also heal them. This is proven that all social pathologies can be healed via faith in the true God along with medication. In every 12 step program, one of the steps is dependence on a higher power (though they don't say God because it is secular).

Also why does it take faith? Because in Genesis, God told Adam and Eve that if they disobey God's one and only command, they shall surely die. Their bodies did not die. That death was a spiritual death. They lost their spiritual sense. So the only way to get that spiritual sense back is through faith.

The Bible is a compilation of all ancient documents that follow the canon, all of which upon close examination do prove to be divinely inspired. So the truth is all "Christians" who do not believe the Scriptures were necessarily inspired by the true living God, will eventually run into many problems with their faith.

A problem I see is that you believe in Jesus, but it is as clear as day that Jesus said more than once that the Old Testament was the word of God and Jesus cited the Old Testament repeatedly. And what we know about Jesus comes from the scripts of the New Testament.

I'll take that as a, "no, they cannot" I suppose. You have fabricated your own understanding of the word that is at odds with the basic definition of it.

I truly believe you should endeavor to look more thoroughly, and I hope you do so in the course of your life. Your motivation for this conversion seems to be the pursuit of love, understanding, and selflessness (all of which you feel you've found in Christianity). All of these things, though rare in modern society, are indeed attainable outside of the Christian religion.

I believe the emptiness you feel can be filled with positive relationships and activities in your life which you have not pursued, or been aware even existed. I feel sad that you now need to have a dehumanizing view of most of the world's population in order to try and fill the void in your life. That you would need to believe that no one but Christians can love and be selfless. That is not the case. And I hope you can come to understand that some day, and build a love and fulfillment outside of tradition.

Thanks, I'll keep that you said this in mind the next time I'm questioning something and will shoot you a PM if it proves to be useful.

I still have a lot to learn, but I have been here for 23 years now and have been blessed with many positive relationships as well as many negative ones. God has played a role in every positive relationship I have ever had. If that changes, I might consider changing my beliefs. I appreciate your questions, they have been helpful.

Np, please read my previous reply as I have edited it. Thanks.