Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have a tendency to not believe any of it at this point. I believe there is a God and that He is love, but that's about it at this point.
I hate to say it, but maybe you should take a step back from this forum and really just be alone with God for a while. Just looking at your reputation points tells me you've been praised thousands of times and probably been called a Heretic thousands of times...I think I would have lost my mind by now in such a case! Leave the brimstoners behind to spew judgement on someone else for a while.
I don't mean to argue with you, but with due respect how would using biblical quotes be helpful to someone who is questioning the accuracy of biblical claims?
The very point of the OP is that she is questioning the validity of relying on scripture as a means of determining what is true.
Surely you can see that scripture by itself wouldn't be useful in helping her draw a conclusion.
I think the very point the OP is making is, how do we know the scripture you are citing is true?
I appreciate your candor.
There has been some concern for her from several of us in the past year(ish). As one poster commented that some saw this happening and are alarmed for her.
The reason I use God's word is because that is the only source from which the truth can be found. The Bible is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.
But then ... human wisdom and unbelief concludes differently about the Bible.
So many great posts in this thread, a sincere thanks to everyone who contributed, no matter what side of the fence you may be on.
I would just like to say that I'm not confused or sad or simply experiencing a "rough patch". I feel relief, because I've been carrying this around with me for years. Always the questions and doubts, all the while paying lip service to something I couldn't really ever believe myself. It was how I was taught. I was raised to "believe" in something I never really believed in.
I'm not saying I don't believe that there isn't a God, I believe there is and He or She is full of light and love. I feel that much, but that's where it ends. I'm tired of reading a book that's full of human error and quite honestly bogus. I'm tired of the arguments, that to me is a good indication that NO ONE knows what the heck they are talking about. If I don't believe the Bible, then throwing scripture at me or making threats of hellfire and damnation certainly aren't going to work.
I didn't "choose" agnosticism.....it is what it is all on it's own. I don't pray, I don't read the Bible and I don't go to church. I may direct my thoughts to a higher power, but I just feel that prayer is such a futile and useless thing when we don't even or can't even know who or what God actually is. No one has seen Him, no one knows him outside of "claims" of possessing something called the Holy Spirit.
I would like to quote a couple of posts that I found to be exactly what I was thinking which lead me to start this thread. No one talked me into anything or swayed me one way or another like some have suggested. This is all me, and it's been in my head and heart for years. But out of fear of hell I was scared to even have doubts or thoughts like I do now, it's very liberating. UR turned that hell crap on it's head for me and paved the way to be able to express exactly what has been going on inside of me all of this time.
I'm not saying UR is wrong, I think it's way more right than ET, that's for sure. It's been a real delight learning about and believing that the true nature of God is love, I love that about UR. I love all my new UR friends here at CD, they've been a tremendous help to me in my journey. But I'm questioning the validity and accuracy of the Bible so that means I have to put away my pretend beliefs in anything other than God right now. I just can't do it anymore. It's dishonest and I'm not being true to myself or anyone else either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lcstyle
Think about prehistoric man, his intellect rising from his newly evolved brain. Everytime a new generations brain got bigger, more and more things must be explained. As man evolved and his brain increased in size and complexity, it sought out new meaning in things which have no meaning. Arrive at present day. Where we still do not fully understand the how or the why to everything. Maybe we never will.
Seeking understanding, seeking enlightenment, man would previous to religion sacrifice animals in tribal communities. When it didn't rain enough, man created dances to try to appease the rain gods. Prehistoric Cro Magnon Man was polytheistic. That is for everything that was outside the scope of his understanding and intellect, he created a new god. Many ancient societies display this behavior. The evolution of all of these sacrifices into one final sacrifice was simply an evolution of old prehistoric stories. Many religious proponents don't even understand that there are many scrolls where a "jesus" like character existed before he existed in judeo-christian right.
So jesus christ was simply an evolution of religion. It did for mankinds understanding of god and religion what Einstein did for the scientific community with his revelation of the general theory of relativity.
Jesus Christ is simply our modern day concept of god. But there are already new religions springing up, seeking to appease those of us who are technological and contemporary, like the bunk new religion of Scientology. Those fervent proponents of Christianity would have you believe that the root of all religion and authority comes from god. Buddhists also believe in the concept of god as one of "infinite light" or "infinite wisdom". They also believe that any new religion that is not focused on what they particularly believe is the work of the devil. But these concepts are merely projections of the struggle between our physical selves and our newly acquired mental capacity. Our brain is bigger than anything else on this planet, and with all that brain comes a need for a whole heck of a lot of explanation.
Just as we will evolve so will all of our own ideas and constructs. Religion will also evolve and go through its progressions. You see, religion and science are really just a reflection of our own mental projections as human beings. All of our collective thoughts and beliefs as a species as we evolve and seek meaning.
Think about it this way, what if the Bonobo Ape's (see presentation here: Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes | Video on TED.com) started to evolve as well, if we could put them in an incubator and speed up time. They too would start to seek meaning. Think about all of the erroneous thoughts and beliefs they would have as they evolved? Wouldn't they also go through several "ages" or iterations of different ideals and beliefs.
How would they think of us? Would they see us as gods in control of their environment?
This is why christ had to die on the cross, so that we could evolve and so that we could stop following old and ancient rituals of sacrificing animals or making "burnt" offerings to "god", along with many other such lunacies evolved out of Cro-Magnon's brain. For man living during those times, once he was "saved" he now didn't have to feel bad or sacrifice an animal for every bad little thing he did against his community or brethren, in fact, he was already forgiven. All he had to do is accept god and he was forgiven.
Many of us still find comfort in this, as even if you are an atheist and even if you do not believe in god, you are still human and you still have all of the problems humans have. Human emotions, imperfect human biology. And imperfect thinking. We are animals with fears arising out of our prehistoric minds. Think about our fight or flight response? Why or how did this come to exist?
How do *you* balance your intellect with your emotions? Through Christ of course.
You get it now?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lcstyle
See if you truly understand the biology of the human animal, you start to understand people such as jennaflorrie. There is nothing wrong with her, I believe that she TRULY feels the way that she says she feels. She feels relief at the thought of not having to be perfect and not having to feel bad about the sins she has or will commit in her life because she understands that she is not perfect and that there is a higher power in her life that has already forgiven her.
This experience is quite liberating and is quite ingrained in our biology. Apparently this is something that evolutionarily was necessary for our survival.
The human psyche is great at experiencing guilt and remorse to the point that it is necessary to have an archetypical christ who was not only killed but was also like jennaflorrie described beaten and dismembered because deep down in the human psyche we all know we can commit horrific and animalistic acts of murder and rape. These are things in our psyche that are part of our primordial soup if you will. But how we justify these things and come to terms with them with our newly evolved big brain that is constantly seeking to justify, rectify, categorize and organize all of these disparaging ideas and emotions, (which i might add are largely based on chemical processes) is through religion and through Christ.
So you see religion and ardent believers are not something to be annoyed at or laughed at.
It is simply meant to be understood. So the next time a bible beater hits you with his particular religion, just smile and wish them well.
They are humans and like them, one day you too will perish.
"all we are is dust in the wind"
Jenna Florie, I applaud you for sharing with us your beliefs!
What gets me is how more people don't experience cognitive dissonance. It's like they become completely unbalanced, eventually though they will experience at least some cognitive dissonance and they will either depending on their own life circumstances sweep it under the rug and hide it or act on it.
"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."
I've never heard of such a conference. Let us know if you know of others coming up.
I've been to several. I've been sort of "out of touch" with a lot of UR groups for a couple of years, but they still meet across the country at various conferences. You would get better info on this by inquiring at Tentmaker or other UR discussion boards. I might be in need of a conference about now!
Which begs the question, Ilene, what did you base your faith on?
My belief is based on God presence and His action in my life thru the Holy Spirit. The Bible stuff came later. God is my foundation and God lead me to Christ. After that I got a Bible and started to read.
Weird, because MY belief is based on God's presence and It's action in my life directly. The worship of wood and ink was and will always be a non-issue. God is my foundation and God leads me to my realizations. After that I read many things... But I was always gifted by the Lord with self realization and a lack of sickness. Not sure why you confine God to an idol book.
I would rather die and be tortured for truth and stand with all my good and loving brothers and sisters then placate to my needy brother's ideas of invisible fathers and his first born prince, and only begotten son. Let your stories be true, I will stand with LOVE rather than meaningless POWER.
I've always believed that power is something the Enemy of God seeks after, something the enemy of God respects.
Satan works wonders within idol scriptures. The enemies of God first tell you to worship brass and gems, then stone and paint, now wood and ink!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
Right. Following your emotions, or 'logic', or whatever makes most sense at the moment is not faith, it is following the human heart which the Bible decribes as deceitful. It can be easily swayed by teachers of false messages.
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? "
Do you have faith with all your heart that the ink is telling the truth?
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 10-20-2011 at 11:14 PM..
So what's going to happen to Ilene now if she dies in unbelief?
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
Quote:
Ilene - Back to basics, before you go any further. Do you believe the Jesus Christ was sent to earth to die for your sins, and that He died, was buried, and rose on the third day according to the Scriptures? Don't proceed any further - just answer that alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilene Wright
I have a tendency to not believe any of it at this point. I believe there is a God and that He is love, but that's about it at this point.
So what's going to happen to Ilene now if she dies in unbelief?
Ilene will receive kolasis aionion (age-during corrective chastisement), not eternal torment, in the lake of fire which is the second death. It may not even involve suffering, but only a correction of whatever may be wrong in her thinking. In other words wrong thinking gets burned up. And it may only last a very small portion of an age. I believe that is how God will manifest His love for her if she dies in unbelief.
So what's going to happen to Ilene now if she dies in unbelief?
The exact same thing that happens to the rest of us: We came from the Source of ALL there is and we will return to that Source. We are pure energy...this is a scientific FACT. Energy CANNOT be destroyed but only change form...so when we shed this body that contains our energy, what that new form will entail, NO ONE KNOWS and all the biblical and religious speculation about it WILL NOT CHANGE THAT FACT.
So what's going to happen to Ilene now if she dies in unbelief?
Ilene will receive kolasis aionion (age-during corrective chastisement), not eternal torment, in the lake of fire which is the second death. It may not even involve suffering, but only a correction of whatever may be wrong in her thinking. In other words wrong thinking gets burned up. And it may only last a very small portion of an age. I believe that is how God will manifest His love for her if she dies in unbelief.
That is my UR belief.
Thanks Rodger, and I'll gladly take that corrective chastisement if I'm wrong for not believing the Bible or other people's interpretations of it. But, according to the OSAS crowd, I'll be just fine.
For those who perceive the "biblical speculation" as fact, the news is good
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristyGrl
The exact same thing that happens to the rest of us: We came from the Source of ALL there is and we will return to that Source. We are pure energy...this is a scientific FACT. Energy CANNOT be destroyed but only change form...so when we shed this body that contains our energy, what that new form will entail, NO ONE KNOWS and all the biblical and religious speculation about it WILL NOT CHANGE THAT FACT.
For those who perceive the "biblical speculation" as fact, the news is good.
About the apostle John's vision he wrote. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away" (Rev. 21:4).
As a UR, I believe that after kolasis aionion (age-during corrective chastisement) for everyone who needs it, the above will be the condition of everyone.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Leave the brimstoners behind to spew judgement on someone else for a while. 
So what's going to happen to Ilene now if she dies in unbelief?
For those who perceive the "biblical speculation" as fact, the news is good
