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@hybridlore
That’s all right, I was confused for a sec.
I really like the concept so far, and I’d love to see where this goes in the future!The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Thanks, that means a lot. I try to resemble Christ in sharing the faith, but sometimes it can be VERY hard. The simple questions are what I try to use most. I’ve found my self (ever since having these conversations on KP) praying that I would be able to debate an atheist and lead him to Christ! That’s a huge step for me, I used to be very very shy. Now I feel the opposite. Thanks for the guidance 😀
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
@freedomwriter76 @thearcaneaxiom
My beliefs are non-denominational, so I don’t have Calvinist or LDS views, but discussing them is interesting to me. I hope these conversations can help bring to light the truth.
@everyone
also, and this is open to everyone, my church is doing a VBS about apologetics and I thought it would be a good time to share a related story. It was a conversation I was having with a close atheistic friend.
We were talking about the afterlife (he didn’t know much of my beliefs yet) and I said, “Well when you die, you go to heaven if you’ve asked Jesus to save you, and if you haven’t, you go to hell.”
He gave an odd look and then said, “Well that’s just your opinion. We can’t really know if anything is true, it could all be an illusion really.”
We’d had discussions about stuff like this before, but never bluntly put like this. After a few secs of thinking, I said, “Is that true?”
He laughed, said “good point” and then we continued the conversation.
I hope this helps bring to light how easy and simple it is to dissuade false beliefs sometimes. Sure, there are moments of difficulty, but the bogus stuff is rather simple.
Thanks to everyone on here for being so kind and loving to each other while discussing and debating conflicting beliefs. That’s what shows how set apart we are from the broken world around us. Sure, we fall short and need His grace, but we respect each other like family and love each other. I pray that this friendliness and brotherhood continues 🙂
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Don’t get me wrong here, you can believe in Calvinism if you want (it’s a variation, not a false gospel), but since this forum is about defending our beliefs, I’d like to give my reasons for not being a Calvinist.
1. If we must be chosen by God, and we cannot choose him (as you stated), why wouldn’t anyone in the Bible say so? The disciples, Paul, and even Jesus simply stated that we must repent and be baptized (as a show of faith). If we can’t choose God, they would’ve said, “Wait on God to choose you,” as that’s all that we would be able to do.
2. There simply is nowhere in the Bible that says we cannot choose God. We were too far gone, but that’s why Jesus came, and now all we have to do is choose him.
3. I think that we all are predestined in a way. Not that we simply have to believe because God chose us, but that God just knows who will end up choosing him in the end, so he’s prepared a place for us.
4. Jesus died for everyone, not just the ones that God picked and chose. If Jesus paid the penalty for just those that he chose, he wouldn’t need the disciples to spread the Gospel because it was already a done deal; the winners were already announced in heaven.
I could be misunderstanding your particular beliefs, but that’s just a few reasons I believe Calvinism is just not reliable. I hope that I don’t sound rude, and sorry if I do XD
Calvinism very well could be true; I just think that you would have to take a really blind leap in the dark to get to it from Scripture. Hope you understand!
(first clarifying: I am not sure if the earth is young or old, I honestly don’t care lol, but I wanted to defend young earth views) So yes, evolutionists rely on additions to DNA, it’s their whole idea. But young earthers, not so much. They believe that there were a ton of different starting kinds that mutated and bred to form different species. This may sound like adding DNA, but mutations is a deletion or warping of DNA, and breeding is taking DNA from two contributors and combining them to form a brand new set of DNA. No addition of DNA is needed. Old earthers don’t require it either, and it’s for the same reasons that they don’t. Hope this helps!
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
I completely agree. I try to use science as much as possible, since it is the thing that most people would trust more than anything. The only time I wouldn’t is if someone was obviously emotional at the time and what they really need to hear is just that they have a loving Father who’s there for them. At any other time, I love to discuss the evidence and scientific side of Christianity. There is so much mind-blowing stuff that shows God to not only exist, but to be currently acting in the universe. And, we have proof that the Bible was written out of inspiration from God, showing that our religion is the only true one.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
First off addressing the translations. We have original documents of the written Bible (In its written language), and we use those to make our translations. We are not copying one English Bible and changing it to a Spanish Bible, we are deriving each one of them separately from the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew. Every word in the Bible does make a huge difference, so we can’t say that it is wrong. We can have certain translations that are wrong, but if you look up exactly how it is translated from the original languages, it is generally very, very precise.
About predestination, I disagree. God gives us free will to ask Jesus to save us. God knows who he will save, but he doesn’t “choose” them. We are the ones who have to choose God. Just look at the countless times when Jesus, the disciples, and Paul told people that all they had to do to get to heaven was repent. Repent is turning away from your sins and toward God, not waiting for God to change you. In the verses quoted from Romans, God doesn’t harden just anyone, it’s whoever he wills. He would only harden someone’s heart if he knew they were never going to come to him, as he wants everyone to come to heaven. He saves whoever he wills, which is those who place their faith and trust in him. If we just had to wait on God to save us, there would be no way of true repentance. Repentance is of free will, you can choose to do it or not to do it. And if we have to repent to be saved (which we do), and repentance is of free choice, we can therefore not simply be “chosen” for salvation, at least not in this sense, because we have to choose to repent.
I agree with you on the LGBTQ+ stuff. It is clearly condemned in scripture, and we cannot back down to it. Though we should help our Christian family out of their transgender or homosexual sins, if they are not Christians we must first bring them to Christ before we show scripture’s condemnation their sins.
Also, gonna be out of town for a while so I won’t be active for a wee bit.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Yeah, you got it right. That’s what I meant.
Interesting theory. I can see that being true.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
My take on it is that the plagues were the hardening of pharaoh’s heart. God gave him a chance after every plague, but because of the plagues his heart was hardened. God also knows everything, so he would’ve known if there was any chance that pharaoh would give in without the plagues. There’s a lot more to it but that’s my basic opinion.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
That theory is definitely true, one hundred percent. I have discussed God with at least a few atheists before, and all of them said they didn’t believe in God because of Christians. They said they had seen Christians act godly on Sunday, but then be hypocrites the rest of the week; people were trying to fit Christ into their lives instead of letting their lives belong to Christ.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
@freedom
Great job with your WIP!
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Good points again, but the whole thing with numbers, you’re starting at one. God didn’t start. He is outside of time, and by eternal, I mean we perceive Him to be. He exists outside of time, so in our eyes, he never began and never will end. It’s not that he’s inside of time, he is outside of it, which means He literally can’t begin or end. Then, he would have to begin or end in time, as he can’t end outside of it.
Also, the thing with felines, the starting feline needs a creator too, and that’s my point. We eventually need a feline that doesn’t need a creator. What I’m trying to say is that nature is here, and if God is restrained by nature, or held inside of it, he could not have created nature, because before he could create what nature, he would have to exist. And before he could exist, assuming he is part of nature, nature would have to exist.
OH YES I do have an opinion on this. Public schools, to put it plainly, and legalistic churches. First kids spend eight or so hours at school, do homework for a couple hours, then have a minor amount of time to read God’s word. The whole time they are at school, Bibles or any form of Christian material is not allowed to be taught or discussed. Then some go to churches that make everything seem like a bunch of rules and don’t share how loving God is. Some also have bad views of fathers because theirs was abusive, and so God seems evil to them. That’s just the very basics, but I hope it clarifies a bit 🙂
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
1. The reason God is exempt of being caused is that the only things that need a cause are things that began to exist, because eternal things logically could not have a cause.
2. It doesn’t have to prove that God created eternity. We can’t. Not scientifically at least. Science deals with what we can test, and we can’t test the past. So, our resort is to “prove” it philosophically. And the only logical way eternity could be created is by something that is outside of eternity.
3. We know that the universe has a cause, and that’s the issue. What is the cause? It’s not proving that God exists, it’s giving the only reasonable answer to the question. If a feline created all felines, that would pose a problem, because the feline would have to create itself, and before it could create itself it would have to exist, forming circular reasoning. It’s the same way with God.
By natural, I am not referring to math, as that again is a logical interpretation of the laws we see in place today. What I am referring to is matter, physics, those types of things that we can see or touch. The more abstract stuff is really hard to explain, but it does have an explanation, even if we can’t understand it.
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Yes, I completely agree.
People forget about the “repent” side of things. They accept Jesus as lord, but not savior. It’s sad how many people believe that they are saved, but are deceiving themselves.
But as Christians, we know the truth, and we are compelled to tell others about it in the Commission.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Good points, but I do think there’s an answer to all of them.
1. God of Gaps) For volcanoes, we discovered a cause for it other than a god. But what caused the cause for the volcano? With the God of Gaps theory, maybe there is some object or substance besides God that could create a universe, but what caused that to exist?
2. Eternity) God created eternity, because He existed before it. He existed before time began and will continue to exist forever. So Christianity answers both of these questions.
3. Why’s it got to be a supernatural being?) Because whatever caused nature has to be outside of it. Otherwise, it would have to create itself or have another creator, which would have to be supernatural. It would either cause a paradox or lead to God either way.
I COMPLETELY AGREE!!! I think people completely forget about the book of James sometimes. It talks about how if we have real or saving faith, we will do good works. Our works aren’t what save us, our salvation does. But our salvation comes from faith, and faith produces works. If it sounds confusion, James 2 puts it a lot better XD
Yeah now I’m working on making Christian games (I haven’t finished one yet), but I will definitely try to make that website XD
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.
Honestly, I laughed aloud after reading that XD I didn’t even think about it 😀
Well, the evolution we see in real time is evolution in regard to change within a kind, not change of kind. We have never seen in fossil records nor in person a single change of one creature to another creature. We can also look at Genesis 1 where it says that the creatures reproduced “according to their kinds”. The reason why so many scientists deny the truth and accept evolution is because they don’t want to believe in God. They want to believe in evolution so much that they ignore all the evidence against it.
Theistic evolution would be, as you said, God creating things in such a way that the dominoes fell and produced all the different species and kinds we see today. The only two problems with that are one, there’s no evidence for it, and two, Genesis says that’s not how God did it.
Scientifically, Darwinist evolution should not even be considered theory, just a hypothesis. It has no evidence, therefore it can’t fit the definition of a scientific theory.
Picasso-ness heheh XD
The measure of a man is how much bacon he eats.