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A Christian believes --------------------------------?
- Thread starter Questioning
- Start date
Is that supposed to be funny? It 's clearly childish.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe we are looking forward to the day when there is no sin but the end game for God is that we voluntarily never sin.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe I have my doubts as whether the truth matters to them. I suppose it is possible for people to be so deluded that they can't recognize truth when they see it.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe confession of sin is not required for salvation. That is only a Roman Catholic belief not a Christian one.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
This is what I believe and have personally experienced. As I've mentioned in previous posts (including this one), the majority of the earthbound human spirits that I visually see are translucent, and they typically manifest themselves as they perceived themselves prior to death, including the clothing that they associated most closely with their identity in life. I've seen the spirits of Union and Confederate soldiers manifest and appear in their uniforms, as well as other spirits manifest in the clothing of the era in which they died. In my experience encountering these spirits, they are often mistaken for historical reenactment actors or local residents who are dedicated to the history of the location. I understand that such an encounter can be shocking to the living.
Read my post here for further details about my past experiences with these spirits.
Full-body apparitions are the closest I've ever seen to earthbound human spirits that resemble living humans. These spirits can accumulate enough energy to manifest into more than a spectral image. They can appear and feel like a real living person, but then they will totally shock the hell out of living people by walking through a solid wall or door, vanishing right before their eyes, or vanishing without a trace in a matter of seconds. I've seen these extraordinary spirits mostly in homes from the Civil War era, in Civil War museums, and on Civil War battlefields. My husband has also seen a couple of these spirits. In fact, he had a shocking encounter with one that literally changed his personal perspective of the Bible's depictions of the afterlife. It truly changed his life.
I've shared the story of his encounter in these prior posts: post #1 and post #2.
I've often said that the primary distinction between us and the earthbound spirits all around us is that they are dead and we are still alive. And although most living people may never visually see a spirit (a.k.a., a ghost), their bodies will certainly react to being close to one. The goosebumps on a person's arm, the standing hair on their arms and the back of their neck, and the dreaded feeling of being watched when no one else is present are commonly believed in the paranormal field to be our physical bodies' reaction to encountering something metaphysical, like earthbound spirits, whether human or non-human. However, it is becoming increasingly normal for living people to freely acknowledge that there is more to our physical world than meets the eye. In fact, belief in the paranormal, such as in ghosts and hauntings, is more widely accepted than in years past. It's more acceptable to talk about it.
I further explained this favorable trend and provided current statistics in my previous post here.
Personally, I find this information to be pretty positive, and I'm really pleased with it. As someone who lives with paranormal phenomena on a daily basis and has since I was a small child, I can honestly say that I believe it is a small step in the right direction. Poltergeist activity is very common in my house, and it doesn't frighten me or my family. It's not unusual to hear footsteps in the hallway in the middle of the night when everyone is in their room, to hear knocking on the walls, to hear disembodied voices coming from an empty bedroom or from the living room in the middle of the night, or to see a partial or full body apparition. If the activity becomes annoying, such as returning home to find the cabinet doors and drawers open in the kitchen, I'll fuss about it, and it won't happen again for a while. It's usually the new spirits who cause this activity, though. I consider the resident spirits in my house to be family because they have been here for a long time. In fact, my family and these spirits live peacefully in my home. Most of these spirits followed me home and opted to stay, or they have a connection to my house or the land. We're not afraid of the activity because we understand what it is and why it's happening.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
I've read many of your posts relating to the Bible and Christian teaching, and I think that you have a thorough understanding of both.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
Are you familiar with Romans 10:9-13?
The Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans also have confession. Way to to ignore hundreds of millions of Christians.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Aw, thanks
I try.It's really too bad that 90% of the discussions in RF revolve around Christianity. It's not the only religion I've studied, and honestly I wish I could discuss Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, etc. more.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Me too, but I cannot discuss them since I don't know enough about them. I'd like to learn more about those religions as well as Judaism and Hinduism, but all people talk about on this forum is Christianity. They also talk about the Baha'i Faith, but I already know about that religion!
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The dialogue in here spurs me doing tons of research. I learn more about i.e. Baha'i simply as a part of wanting to participate intelligently in a discussion concerning Baha'i. I know a modest amount about i.e. Buddhism. But if it were regularly discussed in here, I would be learning so much more.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I only know a modest amount about Buddhism since I only read and post on the Religious Debates and General Religious Debates forums, and nobody debates Buddhism. There is some debate about Islam but not about Judaism, so I only pick up a little from what you sometimes post to Christians.
Depends which version you read, Thomas only does that in John 20:24-29.
The nature of Jesus' resurrected body is not coherently described anywhere. It's visible, it can pass into and out of closed rooms, it can eat, that it can be touched is asserted but not demonstrated in John, and it can fly up into the sky to heaven.
But the five versions of the resurrection are incompatible with each other, and the only result of trying to create a single narrative out of them is to provide a sixth narrative incompatible with the other five ─ as I previously outlined here >Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus<.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I began learning about Buddhism in the late 80s. I was part of a book club that was going through a book on world religions, and Buddhism had a chapter. Over the course of my life, I probably ended up with more Buddhist friends than the average American, first, because I did Shaolin Kung Fu for seven years, and also because later I taught English at a local Chinese community center. I'm not what you can call well read, but I did finish the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra. My brother and I visited a huge Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights, and we spent almost all day just talking to several of the monks there. So yeah, a modest amount of knowledge, but I really should learn more.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
I've had Tarot cards read for me before, including by someone from this forum. Each reading was a personal endeavor, so I won't go into any details about the cards or what they revealed to me, but I will say that everything that the cards predicted came true after each reading. The positive outcomes of these readings inspired me to learn to read them myself. I have my own decks now, but I use them strictly for personal reasons. I don't read them for others.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
"The Barnum effect is the tendency to believe that vague predictions or general personality descriptions, such as those offered by Tarot or astrology, have specific applications to one's unique circumstances"
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
"The Barnum effect is the tendency to believe that vague predictions or general personality descriptions, such as those offered by Tarot or astrology, have specific applications to one's unique circumstances"
This may be true in some readings, but mine were neither vague nor general personality descriptions.
It's okay with me if you don't want to believe in Tarot card readings. It makes no difference to me either way. To each their own.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I had one very good friend who was a Buddhist, with Christian leanings. I met him because I answered his Craigslist ad for some electronics. My late husband and I used to go over to his house and chat and later I kept in touch with him by e-mail, but eventually I lost track of him. There are a lot of Buddhist temples around where I live, so I assume there are a fair share of Buddhists in this area.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
I sense kind and generous energy from you, my friend. I imagine your aura is quite vibrant.