Yea, for me it wasnt so much shocking, it was just really encouraging, and helped me to take a firmer stance in life and to take God more seriously, i loved every bit of it. You can just tell it was raw truth, i also believe that too many preachers nowadays are focused at making you 'feel good' and even though what they are talkign about is true, you can't leave out other very important things thats God still wants you to do in your life which Paul addresses. And yeah, he wasn't invited back to speak again, and he knew that this would be the case before he gave his sermon, but yeah, i really respect his obedience to God, even if it means standing alone against thousands of not non-believers, but christians.
i was surprised when i read the first 4 words after reading your posts, i was like WHOA his not? does not compute! lol but yeah really great post couldnt agree more
This does not make sense to me. If God loves you, and if He wants only the best for you, why He would want to design a system in which if you mess up, you are damned for eternity? How is it "fair" that if someone does not live a good life for a period of, say, 80 years that they should suffer Hell forever? Only a cold, distant, and twisted Mind would dream up such a system for his "children". How can I devote myself to that? I do rather like MadMax's take on this, however. If I remove the after-life, the miracle claims, and all the ritualistic stuff from the equation, I can see why Christianity would be so appealing.
I think "what you are" is dictated by your actions, not the other way around. They way you put it, it almost sounds like you don't believe in free will. You were born blessed, a "Christian", and that dictates the actions you take. Am I misreading that statement?
i'm not big on ritualistic stuff...but i believe in the after-life (which is just life eternal...there is no after because it doesn't end) and the miracles (which i can't escape because i've been a party to one that saved me from death very literally as a child). i believe there was a resurrection of the body and i believe there will be one for me one day. but that's not why i follow. but about ritual. i think it can be ok when it has heart and meaning behind it. anything can be ritualistic and devoid of meaning. but if you do something regularly...like kiss your wife when you leave the house each morning...just because you do it time and again doesn't mean it's necessarily without meaning. but you have to work to keep it that way, i think.
To be fair there is an enormous amount of evidence that Jesus taught reincarnation. Early christians believed this until the catholic church branded it heresy. Regardless, my point is that one can believe in multiple chances and still be christian.
You are misreading...but you're intensely respectful, and I appreciate the HELL out of that. I think your actions provide evidence of what you are....I don't think they dictate what you are. I think you can get a pretty good idea of who someone is by the way they act...provided you had a big enough sample size! I was not born a Christian...there is a tension in Christianity between predestination and free will that I won't even begin to get into because I don't understand it....but that tension litters Christian history. That's a whole different thread. I'm living my life in response to God. Wait...I'm TRYING to live my life in response to God. I'm not fully doing it. I'm saying that in following Christ there is stuff about me that's different about me today than I was yesterday (using today and yesterday as metaphors, obviously). And I assume and hope that I will continue to change. Things I desire and things I hope for have changed over time....that's been a progression. I don't believe that's something I did. I believe that's something happening to me.
just ask my business partner who is among the Christ-followingest dudes i've ever had the pleasure of knowing. C.S. Lewis wrote an INCREDIBLE book called The Great Divorce. In that book he paints a picture of people continuing to make their choice about living with or without God even in the "after-life." Really good book.
I missed this post before. What incorrect assumption was I making? Some step through the gate and some do not based on the life they led and the choices they made. And God, by definition the divine master of all things, would then be in a position to decide the fate of those who are not permitted through Heaven's gate. So that led to my question -- do you believe the rest of cast to Hell, that they are reborn, or maybe something else? What exactly does the Bible say on this? How about this: if you live a good life as a Christian, then your reward is eternal bliss. If not, you die. No after-life, or continued life, nothing. I can't think of a good reason why God would rather enforce eternal punishment instead of just putting a poor soul out of its misery.
Now, if you are an insomniac, dyslexic, and agnostic, you probably stay up all night wondering if there really is a dog.
Doesn't that emptiness fill you when you think that after you die that nothing, nothing, nothing will happen with you. Like you've never existed? In almost every monotheistic religions people are taught to LEARN to STUDY. That's the first word in Qu'ran, LEARN. Learn to be a better human, learn because you need it, it will raise your this life value and afterlife value.
If a person lives a completely self-involved life without give nothing of himself to others, then truly when he dies, he's gone forever. But if he lives a good life, loving and helping those around him, then I think in a sense he does live on after death. All those relationships he forged, those people that loved him back, he'll remain with them.
I pretty much hated Christians, alot. Even to the point of causing physical harm. I found out I had an opportunity to get some Christians in a nearby town arrested and so I took off to see if I could hurt them. On the way a bright light blinded me on the road and caused me to have a wreck. I was totally blind, couldn't see anything and next I hear a loud voice booming that seemed to come from the sky and the voice said, "This is Jesus, stop hating Christians." I couldn't see anything, total blindness for 3 days, I stayed with a friend and I couldn't eat, I had no appetite whatsoever; it's hell being blind. On the third day I had a dream that a Christian came to see me and in my dream this guy I never met prayed for me. The next morning the guy that I dreamed about, someone I didn't know, came to my friend's house and prayed for me- that was weird. Some kind of alien scales things fell from my eyes and my sight was totally normal. This Christian dude explained things to me and told me I should believe. That's why I believe.
No emptiness here. Like durvasa said, as long as you contribute to the world you'll live on. Don't get me wrong, I'm agnostic when it comes to religion, but I do hope for an afterlife so I can keep watching the Rockets when I'm dead.
You've said that you did a lot of drugs in the past. I'm curious if you were using around the time of your accident? I mean no offense by the question.
Actually that wasn't about me, it's the story of how a world famous theologian first became a Christian.
