God and forgiveness......

My Pastor once said to me: "Donna, you're a witness; not an attorney." I added the rest.

What do you mean we are not likely to agree on much of anything? I can think of a few things:
1. We both have an appreciation for good poetry.
2. Harley DuWayne is a sexist pig.
3. War is hell.
4. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. (this could even be considered 2 points of agreement.)
5. There are 48 states in the continental U.S.

ummm .... I'll keep thinking. In the meantime, it's probably best we confine our discussions to these 5 topics. ;D

 

i thnk I'd like that rastorp Donna

 

your addition to the pastor's words was great

now, I MUST respond to your assertion that Harley is a sexist pig! I spoke with him and he all he said was "do wut? wut the hell is she talkin' about--she must be a womens libber er werse"

back to the original topic of God and forgiveness--a protracted debate could emerge around whether Harley could ever be forgiven for who he is

 

Prima Donna,

I gotta tell you. The replies that you have given (should I say 'witness' instead of replies - I think maybe so) allow me a whole different perspective on how different people can believe the same thing. It's been wonderful to read your words - poetic would be the words I'd want to use here. Thank-you.
holly

 

Chris I don't understand you. You type that you don't want any scriptures, yet you post your thread on the religious section? I can't participate in this thread because I don't think or do anything apart from relating it to the very scriptures that you don't want us to talk about or type about. Let me explain. I think about Jesus all the time, I mean all day, from the time I get up to the time I go to bed. Even when I am watching a movie at the theatre with my husband I wonder about the writer's story line and how God feels about it? I can't do anything apart from HIM, God in my mind. To me what you have asked for in this thread is called, well to put it bluntly, "humanism."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rPvrXoIVl0

 

I just like having general conversations about God and about faith Cynthia and feel we can do that without bible beating each other, because too many christians that I know past & present come off like religious robots with all their answers. And frankly that always scares me off and out of the conversation, so those people that I am talking about are not allowed to have those type discussions with me anymore or I'll leave the room.

 

I know how it sounds, Chris, when Christians quote Scriptures. I used to be an atheist, and didn't want to hear it myself. But since coming to faith, I have learned that Scripture is our definitive resource for understanding what it is that God wants us to know.

Maybe it isnt God's Word you don't want to hear, but rather people's hypocritical use of it.

The best any Christian can do is paraphrase God's Word when asked about matters of faith, but it's still Scripture we're preaching at you. Without it, you're left with faulty human reasoning and rationale; and no higher source by which to measure the accuracy of your statements.

God teaches us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Unless you refer to it, faith cannot grow and flourish.

 

What I am saying or meaning is how about us just simply talk about situations or personal experiences we've had where we felt God's prescence, and you can do that without ever going near or quoting the bible. I would much rather have that conversation then someone saying "well brother in Mathew 3:18 it says".......blah blah blah.

 

Chris,

I completely understand where you're comming from. I'm a people person more than a book person too. I like to speak with people about their personal experiencies rather than what the bible has told them about those experiencies.

The problem is, you titled this "God and forgiveness" which brings into light what the bible has to say about it. God and the bible are synonymous with each other. You don't usually have one without the other. It sounds like you keep your relationship with God on a more personal level and try to witness him through people rather than books.

Most of the people on this site who are religious - no matter the religion - have some written word that teaches them how to live. So asking your question will not only get those who will try to answer you without chapter and verse but to some there is no explanation that truly talks to forgivness except the bible.

So, I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that people use the bible not only to live by but to witness what they believe to be the truth and giving those words as they understand them to answer your question. So, you get a mixture of both.

Where do you get your understanding from with regard to knowing and understanding the trinity?

 

Well holly just for the record I have read the bible front to back twice and attended church faithfully for about 10 years, but that all stopped around 2004 and now the church only exists in my heart and my life experiences and interracting with people has become my bible.

 

I like that Chris - church exists in your heart. Whatever your faith or spiritual practice may be - it resides in your heart. You'll never find God in a book or in your mind, but in your heart is where it's experienced.

 

Since you read the Bible from front to back, then you know what God says about the heart of a man - that it is exceedingly wicked. Depending upon your heart and your emotions in order to find God, is a humanist point of view. And as you well know, humans can betray and abandon you, leaving you feeling vulnerable and angry.

But God will never abandon you. You can know that through the Bible, which is God's Word. God is found there - His law, His truth to you, His love for you. To reject His Word is to reject Him. Please be clear on that point.

 

I have to say that is absolutely false concerning my case, because I have read his word - and then processed it - and are now applying it all to my life. And I pray on a daily basis so my lines of communications are always left open to him, and he may only exist in a book for you but for me - he exists inside of me(and that's where I go to find him).

 

Chris, maybe an adequate question here would be whether you accept what you read in the Bible as truth, in total, or reject it in part, which is also to reject it in total?

Reading this just makes me curious to that point. I will be satisfied with an answer and will not return unless I am addressed requiring a return.

 

Chirs, Thanks for replying to me. What excatly did you expect to hear besides experience and/or God's word from the bible?

 

A general discussion on what everyone feels would be sufficient, because I believe there are modern day prophets and disciples among us that I enjoy talking to as well.

 

I totally believe the general meaning of the bible and in the ten commandments, but the bible has been tinkered with & edited soooooo many times over hundreds of years that you have to take some of it with a grain of salt.

 

Chris that is where you and I have to agree to disagree. I don't take any part of the Bible at all with a grain of salt as you wrote. I believe the Bible is Holy Spirit breathed, divine, every part of it. I don't believe you can pick and choose which parts you believe and which ones you don't. I believe God is much bigger than men that tried to tinker with or change what is in the Bible. I believe it is exactly what God wants for us, otherwise HE would have tinkered it or fixed it or changed it as you put it. It explains a lot now though, why you don't want anyone quoting what could possibly be to you something you take with a grain of salt.

 

So you don't think there's even the slightest chance that some of those stories have been altered or embelished? Well I do and so I choose to focus more on the teachings of Jesus and following the Ten Commandments, rather than all the different stories of what happened prior to Jesus arriving here.

Take for example this, let's say I spill my coffee in the breakroom at work. By the time that story floats around through ten different people, it will end with me throwing my coffee against the wall and having it splashing all over me. So did that actually happen that I spilled my coffee - YES, did I throw it against the wall and splash it everywhere - NO. And that is just a very small example of how people can embelish and incorrectly relay a story in a short period of time, so imagine what might or could happen over a thousand year period.