How do you know?

sounds like Satan was demonstrated invariable proof of God, and Satan exercised freedom of choice anyway... thus my argument

And my counter argument was even if Satan knew God existed he probably had a misconception about God's nature. Perhaps God chose not to reveal His entire nature to Satan in order that Satan might choose to freely submit to Him.

You can counter any argument if you just add 'perhaps hypothetical happened'

And if so, God knowingly spawned the fallen angel and root of all evil in the world simply because he didn't give Satan an honest look at him? What kind of loving god is that? Surely he knew such a hypothetically coy thing would result in what happened.

Your straw-manning this one, Stu

Not a straw man argument. Merely pointing out that there is room in the story of Satan's fall for the existence of freewill....that there are many degrees of revelation.

Now you are trying to obsfuscate by taking the tact that such a coy act would be contrary to an all loving God. Really you should be making an argument that if God revealed Himself to St Paul then He is obligated to reveal Himself to everyone else in the same degree.

I was referring to Christians who believe in the end times stuff.

But anyway you seemed to miss my point. Which is if you want to say maybe God reveal as little as possible. Maybe you're right. But it cant be argued against because its a God works in mysterious ways deal.

What exactly is mysterious about it? Putting limits on revelation is common and not hard to understand act that any reasonable person can relate too.

When the United States first made public the existence of the stealth fighter the issued blurred out images of it. Was there some mystery there? Sure, but was the government operating in a mysterious way? Hardly their action was completely expected.

The Bible is part of the history of humans, and there are some good ideas in it, but among the untruths in the Bible, the first one that became a revelation (as untrue) to me was the Book of Revelation.

It reads like an urban legend email or an adolescent's retort of "My dad can kick your dad's ass". The worst part is starting at Chapter 4 and continuing to the end.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...+4&version=NIV

It was written at a time when the Roman Empire was kicking butt and taking names.

Whats so mysterious about it is your guessing.

If he made mass revaluations in the past there are two answers to why he doesn't now. One, idk (mysterious ways). Two, he doesn't exist.

If you want to make a guess and say God puts limits on his revaluations, thats fine. But it can't really be argued against (other then on its morality like dknightx argument was that you skipped).

High five thats what go me out too. One of those Johns must of be on some good ****.

if you take enough drugs and look long enough im sure you could see "jesus lives" written in tha stars.




VPI$P makes the best threads in RGT .








NAH.

if he sent his son to die for my sins 2000 years ago and wants me to accept him into my heart, yeah i don't think a level-playing field of existence is an absurd request.

i mean god gave me critical thought, and he knew when i'd be born that there'd be several different religions in varying regions. so surely he'd know that i would have a hard time not being skeptical and cautious when proceeding with any religion, much less 'the correct one.'

i mean if i die, i can't really be sorry for being such a skeptic as i'm just using logic and my brain, both things god gave me.

so i think if god revealed himself and his love and wisdom to everyone, and took the doubt or fiction out of his alleged being, it would be a lot fairer. otherwise, it doesn't make much sense for him to hope i invest myself in a religion that is arbitrarily influenced upon me based on where i was born, what my parents believed, etc. etc.

Or further revelations were simply not needed. Its not like christianity had difficulty spreading once it got going. Again...no mystery.

who wants to bed on "obfuscate" being on stu's word of the day calendar some time in the past week? the line is -1000

Further mass revaluations are coming according to a lot of Christians.

But if your guess is right and we need no further revelations, ok. Again i can't argue with a, as you said "The "as little has possible" is not above all but rather something beholden to God's plan.", God has a plan man argument.

Other then (like dknightx said) on the morality of allowing so many souls to parish for lack of revelations.

But that will just get back to the God has a plan man too, so it's kind of a dead end.

Yeah, things go pretty smoothly when you start killing people.

The killing of people started with the Catholic Church, it has no relation what soever to the original believers and first century church.

There are NO ACCOUNTS EVER of the first century believers killing someone.......

Nice try though. The Catholic church for the 1000nth time is the one that is to blame for almost everything that has happened bad with true Christianity. Of course they (the top leadership) have a little help from the darkside.

Its absolutely a miracle that we still have the word of God intact with only a few forgeries, even though they had so much control over it..........goes to show you that God's word is the truth and that God keeps His words as promised.

Jer 1:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.

An almond tree always represented someone who was incharge of protecting the word of God.

Jer 1:12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten (watch over) my word to perform it.


God promised to watch over His word and has protected it so that it can still be understood even though all those evil birds got there hands on it and tried to screw it up......

Well, since they DID start killing people, I guess we'll never know whether Christianity would have continued to gain support or whether it would have withered and faded away like so many other belief systems around that time.

Its still here today, although its (mainstream Christianity) very watered down and laden with errors, its still going strong, even after all the persecution Christians have had through the centuries.....

Did they ever use those curse the enemy prayers? Maybe one of those got someone.

No.

Pletho you're not as fun as you used to be. You use to joke around and have a little fun. It makes me sad.

This might qualify:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...10&version=NIV
Posted in the Do Christians still believe these are true thread.

Considering that the penalty for being a christian was death and it still thrived, I cannot imagine what would have stopped it. Christianity grew at great rates under the absolute worst conditions. What do you feel would have changed that would have caused it to wither?

There is absolutely nothing in that story that implies that the people involved killed them. In fact it says the exact opposite. Do you ever care about being even the least bit accurate?