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Faith is simply the substance of the things that you hope for and the evidences of the things that you can't see ... don't attempt to redefine it, you will and do fail. You can't have faith in something unless you hope it is true, period ...
If you hope for whatever you believe in you have faith in it, especially if there is no percieved evidence of it.
Here is the simple truth, if you have faith in a literal biblical (supposedly) hell .... that means that you hope it is true beyond any facts. According to the bible ...
When I say "you", I'm speaking in general terms. Not completely pointed at you specifically. Just throwing out some things to think about.
So are you saying that the "good news" that you spread is not GOOD news sometimes? I remember once someone telling me that sometimes, in some situations, the good news isn't really good news at all. Like comforting someone after an atheist's funeral.
If a mother just lost her son who was a staunch atheist... what kind of comfort would you give to her? Would your good news really be GOOD news? Would it bring her hope? Would it bring her peace? Would it help to expand love in her heart? Or would your words terrorize her and throw her into a pit of despair?
The real good news, is that Jesus Christ is the saviour of ALL mankind. That God loves all and that love conquers all. Love wins. That our ignorance of love (individually and collectively) is a temporary thing and that it is being transformed into KNOWLEDGE. That He (God) (Who IS LOVE) will be ALL in ALL.
The real good news is GOOD news no matter the situation. The real good news brings with it, HOPE. The real good news ushers peace into our heart and promotes love to grow and strengthen. Is your "good news" as powerful as that?
Or is it just a weak, watered down hypocritical imitation that basically tells them God "loves" them, but will have them tortured forever if they don't love him back...?
I didn't twist anything. I specifically said it was probably no what you meant, but rather some kind of new-age slogan.
If you are going to continue to walk around going "ooooh, aaahhh, love, loooooove", then you might want to tone down on the judment of other people's faiths. It tends to erode the image you are trying to build with the "love" comments. If you want to love, then love, if you want to criticize, then criticize, but when you do both, it makes you look like somone who can't follow her own teachings.
I already know who and what God it. He has already enabled me to see that there are people who are in dire need of God because they do not yet have a relationship with Him.
Yes...you slanderously twisted what I said...calling it new-age. GOD IS LOVE is a teaching of the bible...if you missed that, you should go back and read it again. And, just for the record, I was not criticizing your faith...it was just a matter of pointing out the log in your own eye while you were pointing out the speck in others.
Yes...you slanderously twisted what I said...calling it new-age. GOD IS LOVE is a teaching of the bible...if you missed that, you should go back and read it again. And, just for the record, I was not criticizing your faith...it was just a matter of pointing out the log in your own eye while you were pointing out the speck in others.
I said "am I right"? What do you think that means? Yes, that's right, - it is a question.
The truth is I have no idea what you are selling. Is it new-age, is it UR, mystic, or what? What is it? I don't know, but I know it is not what Jesus taught. The fact that you find very few who share your views should make you wonder if you misunderstood something. That is why I said you should examine your faith.
You have picked "God is love" out of the Bible and you use it to sell other ideas which are NOT in the Bible. When you say "God is love and you don't need faith", it is easy to tell it is not the whole truth. The first part is true, and the last part is a lie. You mix in some truth to sell a false doctrine. It is an old trick.
I said "am I right"? What do you think that means? Yes, that's right, - it is a question.
The truth is I have no idea what you are selling. Is it new-age, is it UR, mystic, or what? What is it? I don't know, but I know it is not what Jesus taught. The fact that you find very few who share your views should make you wonder if you misunderstood something. That is why I said you should examine your faith.
You have picked "God is love" out of the Bible and you use it to sell other ideas which are NOT in the Bible. When you say "God is love and you don't need faith", it is easy to tell it is not the whole truth. The first part is true, and the last part is a lie. You mix in some truth to sell a false doctrine. It is an old trick.
Just because you don't believe to love is greater than to have faith doesn't make it untrue. Even the bible states the greatest of these things (love, faith, hope) is love. 1 Cor 13.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Without faith (expressing itself through love) it is impossible to please God.
Just because you don't believe to love is greater than to have faith doesn't make it untrue. Even the bible states the greatest of these things (love, faith, hope) is love. 1 Cor 13.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Without faith (expressing itself through love) it is impossible to please God.
What are you selling?
This needs repeating and emphasizing. The false faith in a shallow intellectual acknowledgment of specific beliefs about God and Christ has led far too many astray over the 2000+ years of the religious corruption of Christ's Gospel. It is the crux of an "easy believism" that confuses our salvation (which CHRIST achieved) with our sanctification which we need to achieve. When we "believe ON" Christ by following His commands to "love God and each other" . . . and follow the guidance of His Holy Spirit within our consciousness to what God has "written in our hearts" . . . we are achieving our sanctification . . . or NOT. The expressing of faith through love is the charge we cannot ignore without consequence.
You post is pretty twisted logic. It would mean that if you believe there is pain, war, disease and death, then that should somehow translate to meaning that you hope for those things. The truth is that most people are well aware of facts which they hope were not true.
Twisted? This coming from a guy who cant even recognize that all the things he listed are things that we experience daily and have more than enough ample evidences to prove that they exist for a fact. That is to say you believe in those things because you know for a fact they are real and it has nothing to do with hoping that they are real or having faith that they are real.
Your entire argument has no bearing in the slightest on my logic ... And your reasoning is completely flawed. Could it be because you have been mentally traumatized by that abusive bad religion you subscribe to?
Leave it to the fundies to redefine the term (just as they have redefined the entire Christian reality); after all who cares what the apostle Paul has to say about it, right?
Last edited by Ironmaw1776; 08-18-2011 at 03:02 PM..
I don't think that the idea is that we have "faith" in hell, or "hope" it is true, as has been suggested.
As Bible-believing Christians, we believe it, because we believe the Bible teaches it. We believe God's truth by faith. No one should ever be happy to tell people that they are going to hell. The Christian's desire is that people will become saved.
We see that any of us are saved strictly as a result of God's grace and mercy...not that we deserve any of it. Our message then becomes a matter of desiring God's mercy and grace for our fellow-man....that whoever comes to Christ will not be cast out.
But we also must be responsible and warn the people of the trouble we are in with God by nature, and that He has made a way of salvation for those who heed the message.
If everyone is eventually saved, anyway, whether they believe on Christ or not, then the preaching of the Gospel seems to become unnecessary, especially since some on this forum have expressed a belief that there are other roads to God, and that other religious systems of belief should not be discounted or discarded.
I do not agree with you ... I do not believe you are a bible believing Christian, though you probably really do believe that you are ... I believe your are a fundamentalist traditional Christianity believing Christian, who believes in certain badly translated and edited versions of "the bible". I don't mean that as an insult either, it is simply an observation.
I am a "bible believing" Christian, and my bible doesn't have the word hell in it even once, nor the idea of eternal torture ... And neither do the earliest manuscripts of the scriptures, in the old or new testament writings. Most "Christians" today have been utterly duped ... In truth they more closely resemble Zoroastrians than they do 1st and 2nd century Christians, in everything but their belief concerning the person of Christ himself.
And by the way the preaching of the gospel is not what saves people. True Christians do not preach the gospel in order to save people, but to proclaim the good news of the work of Christ on the cross which saves the whole world. Neither is it our job to persuade anyone of believing anything, that is the job of the spirit, and that only comes by the rebirth and quickening of the spirit in Gods own good time. It is the father himself that drags all people to Christ, not us ...
Just because you cant believe that God is the savior of all people, or that God will have all people to be saved and come to a full knowledge of the truth, and therefore are unable to command and teach these things, it doesn't mean that those scriptures are lying about the fact that he is and will do exactly that.
Last edited by Ironmaw1776; 08-18-2011 at 03:01 PM..
I said "am I right"? What do you think that means? Yes, that's right, - it is a question.
The truth is I have no idea what you are selling. Is it new-age, is it UR, mystic, or what? What is it? I don't know, but I know it is not what Jesus taught. The fact that you find very few who share your views should make you wonder if you misunderstood something. That is why I said you should examine your faith.
You have picked "God is love" out of the Bible and you use it to sell other ideas which are NOT in the Bible. When you say "God is love andyou don't need faith", it is easy to tell it is not the whole truth. The first part is true, and the last part is a lie. You mix in some truth to sell a false doctrine. It is an old trick.
There you go...slanderously twisting my words again. What I said is "I" don't need faith because I already "KNOW" God exists and he is a GOD THAT IS PURE UNCONDITIONAL AGAPE LOVE. I don't need faith that God exists...I ALREADY KNOW IT....perhaps this is too complicated for you since you can't comprehend the difference between having faith in something and KNOWING something.
Just because you don't believe to love is greater than to have faith doesn't make it untrue. Even the bible states the greatest of these things (love, faith, hope) is love. 1 Cor 13.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Without faith (expressing itself through love) it is impossible to please God.
What are you selling?
Thanks Kat...it's nice to know not everyone has checked their brain in at the door.
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Excellently stated. 
