Thief
Rogue Theologian
Thou shall NOT have another god before theeGod cannot be jealous because that is a human quality and God is not human.
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Thou shall NOT have another god before theeGod cannot be jealous because that is a human quality and God is not human.
I just love that verse....
So do you believe only a 'few' will get to heaven?
If so, then the hundred-dollar question is who are the few?
So, when an unbeliever dies today, he goes to the place of torment. When the believer dies he goes to be with the Lord, and is in Heaven, as anywhere Christ will be, will be Heaven.
Good-Ole-Rebel
I do not know what you would assume a limbo would exist ‘in the first place’ if we went anywhere? Limbo would only exist if there was a question as to what were not worthy of entering heaven, as in Catholic beliefs. Baha’is have no limbo belief.I agree, that is why I would assume that a state of limbo exists, if we go anywhere in the first place. Which I would not assume, what would be the purpose for keeping our souls, either in a Heaven or in a state of limbo for that matter?
Some of us are very well aware that we have a soul, because of what we believe. Many people are confused as to what the soul is because of what is in the Bible, which has many contradictory verses. Baha’u’llah was very clear about what the function soul is as well as its eternal destination, although He made it very clear that the nature of the soul is a mystery no mind can ever hope to unravel.If God wanted us to have a soul (Whatever that might be), I think we would be aware of it, in the same way as we are aware of our brain, our thoughts etc. Why would God hide it from us or not make it obviously clear that we have one.
That my friend is why it is vitally important to be aware of the soul and what the soul is while we are still living in this life. Otherwise any judgment that came down in the afterlife would be wholly unjust. But since the soul is the person himself, the sum total of your personality, even if you do not know that, as long as you are a good person and lead a moral life, you will be fulfilling your purpose in life, which is to acquire good character. However, it helps to know what the soul is and that it lives on because that gives one more motivation to lead a good life.One explanation could be for him to judge us at the end of our life, but what sense does that make, if you think about it. If the soul is what is to be judged for whatever in this life, but we are not ourselves aware or able to perceive or even understand what a soul might be, then the judgement of it and our whole existence here on Earth is completely meaningless.
That is true because if there is no afterlife it really would not matter how you lived this life except that you might fall into the justice system if you led a very immoral life. Humans can fail/sin and the blame does not go on God because we all have free will.Therefore you need some sort of afterlife to punish or reward a person for it to make any sense, but also you need humans to be able to "fail/sin" so the blame goes on them and not God.
I believe God is good, even if there is nothing we can see that seems to suggest that, and I do not think God created us with faulty behaviors. Faulty behaviors are the result of our own choices we make since we have free will to choose between good and evil.But again, I do not think that God is either good nor evil, because nothing seem to suggest that, and therefore there will be no judgement in the end. And a being capable of creating everything is not incompetent, so assuming that he would create us with faulty behaviours which he wouldn't approve of, would make him exactly that.
Those of us who know we have free will are aware that we have choices, and even though we know that even if we cannot choose to do ‘anything’ we want to do, we know we can choose between good and evil.The reason being that free will doesn't really explain anything. Whether we have free will or not, makes no difference, as we wouldn't be able to know the difference anyway.
Free will is not something we can prove we have. If it was decided by anyone it would have to be predestined by God and maybe that is true too. Maybe what we choose to do was predestined by God.Like us writing these posts, how would you demonstrate that it was not already decided a long time ago or whether we actually decided it through free will moments before we wrote them?
You said it, unless there is a soul. It is the soul that differentiates humans from animals, it is not just that we have a more intelligent brain.But nothing seems to suggest that, we are made of the exact same stuff that all other animals here on Earth is made of. We function in the same way, we show the same type of behaviour as they do. There is a reasonable explanation for our intelligent (brain). So unless you add a soul we really are not all that different from other animals.
You are right Nimos, it does not seem logical and there are a lot of questions and the need for suffering is the biggest question. It has to be for a reason that we suffer; the two reasons are that suffering is part and parcel of living in a material world and that suffering might be beneficial to us in some way. These can be confirmed by personal experiences because all we have to do is look what causes suffering. For example, we see the economy tank as it is doing now and people lose their jobs and businesses and people suffer, people get a disease like the coronavirus and they suffer. This is all coming from the material world; the spiritual word causes no suffering. However, many people will testify that the suffering helped them grow stronger and become more resilient.Which obviously lead to a lot of questions, first of all, why would there be a need for suffering? Why does it have to be painful for woman to give birth? Why does animals have to eat each other?
There is no logical reason why any of this is needed.
Well, God created us the way he did knowing that is how we could fulfill the purpose of our existence, so we have a logical brain and free will. God could have made us with the intention of having complete control over our behavior, but God wanted us to be able to choose and thereby develop our own character.In regards to behaviour, lets assume that you could create beings like God could, without any limits.
But God did not MAKE us that way, God made us in His image so we have the potential to be good. What happened is that we made good or bad choices ‘after’ we were born because we have a free will to choose, and those choices made us who we are.It might be, im purely talking about this from what we can see in the world and what we at least know up until now.
Again why or what would be the purpose of sending anyone to heaven? Think about it using the cat example above... would you throw the cats that murdered some of the others in hell or punish them for doing it, when you made them that way?
I understand the point you are trying to make but if we believe in God we just accept that there is a reason why we have to suffer and it is part of life in this world and that it can help us develop our character. If there was no afterlife it would be totally cruel and unjust, but this life is really only a very small part of our total existence. If we do not believe that we will probably be an atheist or an angry believer. I was once an angry believer, angry at God all the time, wishing I could be an atheist so God would not exist. I still go there at times, namely when I lose a cat.If you really loved them, you would make it so they had no reason/desire for doing so, and its not unrealistic or even an unreasonable idea, as lot of animals living today on Earth do not murder and kill each other like we do.
There is Heaven on earth for people who turn to God and thus do not suffer even in times of trouble, just don’t count me in because I am not that spiritual.Depending what your view of heaven is, I would say that no one is living there, as long as you have suffering, there can't be one. At least not in my understanding of it.
I would say that Heaven is for those who lived a moral life, loved God and their neighbor and Hell is for those who failed to do so for whatever reason.But lets take a simple question, again assume that you are the Goddess of Cats, and im a Cat. I then ask you, the following. Why did you create Heaven and Hell? What would you answer to that?
Well , what immediately came to mind is what Jesus said: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.Taking into account what I wrote above, How do you see this being expressed in the world, keep in mind that God loves all humans? (At least I assume he does).
Does that include all of those who call themselves Christians, or will only some of them get to heaven?The few are the faithful who die in Christ.
A false gospel can save no one. Only the true gospel has the power to save. A person needs to know what the true gospel is and believe it. Then he needs to render the obedience of faith.Does that include all of those who call themselves Christians, or will only some of them get to heaven?
If it is not all of them, what would be the criteria used to differentiate between them and who would differentiate, God?
Do you have the answers? If so, please share them with us.
If God exists/existed would God welcome everyone into heaven as soon as they died, regardless of the kind of life they had lived on earth?
For example, would God welcome a mass murderer into heaven and treat him the same way as a person who had lived a noble life serving others and worshiping God?
If you think God would not welcome everyone into heaven why wouldn’t God do that?
This question is for believers and nonbelievers.
If God exists/existed would God welcome everyone into heaven as soon as they died, regardless of the kind of life they had lived on earth? For example, would God welcome a mass murderer into heaven and treat him the same way as a person who had lived a noble life serving others and worshiping God?
If you think God would welcome everyone into heaven, why would God do that?
If you think God would not welcome everyone into heaven why wouldn’t God do that?
That sounds kind of harsh. What about people who led very moral lives but did not believe in Jesus as Savior?
Not just the God of Bible but any Abrahamic God. You don't have the choice of not believing.
Did it ever occur to you that the unbelievers do not believe because they see no evidence for God?
From my seven years of posting to atheists day and night, that is what I have discovered.
So it is not that atheists 'don't want God.' They just do not believe God exists because they do not 'see' what you and I see, the evidence that God exists.
So for that you believe that they deserve to go into a Lake of Fire and burn for eternity?
Lord Jesus! How can you believe that a 'loving God' will do that?
Why?
The Bible also says that all humans were created equally.
The only not equal status in human life is group status and group control which includes scientific choice, and machine applications.
Extra fall out, is why human life became unequal...and as the Bible was a reviewed book of previous DATA inferred documentation, the study proved both in olden days and then modern times that science had attacked life and the human endured what was said as "going to hell".
If everyone shared the occult phenomena result no scientist would even exist today.
Are you saying when someone dies he's not dead but alive?
Again, as far as I can see there is no such thing as a soul, there are vastly different ideas of what it is suppose to be, depending on who you talk to. Yet no one have be able to demonstrate it in the first place.That my friend is why it is vitally important to be aware of the soul and what the soul is while we are still living in this life. Otherwise any judgment that came down in the afterlife would be wholly unjust.
Again I think you jump the fence here, because obviously the first question one would ask. Is why would we have to need a motivation to lead a good life to begin with?But since the soul is the person himself, the sum total of your personality, even if you do not know that, as long as you are a good person and lead a moral life, you will be fulfilling your purpose in life, which is to acquire good character. However, it helps to know what the soul is and that it lives on because that gives one more motivation to lead a good life.
The free will argument makes no different. The cats would not exists unless you have created them to begin with. The assumption that free will is good, is only relevant if you even know what it is. And honestly I don't think a normal cat or animal today know what free will is. Humans does, because of our brains and intelligence. Yet that is no excuse, for why God would desire us to have it. And as you said, the brain is not what makes us special, its our soul. Which again we can't demonstrate to exist.That is true because if there is no afterlife it really would not matter how you lived this life except that you might fall into the justice system if you led a very immoral life. Humans can fail/sin and the blame does not go on God because we all have free will.
Yes but he could do that, while still making us behave exactly as he wanted us to. Again you have a lot of cats and you would probably agree that each of them have their own personality. So even though they don't know what free will is, what the idea of good and evil is, they behave in their own way. The idea of free will, good and evil is an illusion and a concept, which have little meaning unless you are intelligent enough to understand what it is.Well, God created us the way he did knowing that is how we could fulfill the purpose of our existence, so we have a logical brain and free will. God could have made us with the intention of having complete control over our behavior, but God wanted us to be able to choose and thereby develop our own character.
you speak of saving people .or people being saved .God would not welcome everyone but he wants everyone to go to heaven.
Now let us check this if this conforms with the Bible:
1 Timothy 2:3-5 New International Version (NIV)
This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
God definitely wants all people to be saved
God wants people to come to a knowledge of the truth
And what is this truth to be learned?
That Christ Jesus is the man and Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and mankind.
you speak of saving people .or people being saved .
saved from what ? ultimately its to be saved from death . As it is now , death is the enemy ! it is staking you , and will have you . there are a thousand ways to die. but only one way to get that life back. if not for the resurrection ,that has been promised by Jesus , no one , no one . would ever be saved from death .
Earth was eventually getting saved by the asteroid wandering star saviour, out of space cooling of Sun radiation blasting. Earth was cooling its atmospheric attack.
Science virtually took Earth back into the Moses era of historic Earth attack/gas stated by constant nuclear removal of natural historic God cold radiation mass.
i hope you realize you backed up what i was saying to youSave from what, you asked?
Let the Bible answer because this is our basis of faith.
2 Peter 3:7-12 New International Version (NIV)
By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
I believe people need saving from the wrath of God which will definitely come
Those who are dead can do nothing at least they won't witness this when it happens
Those who are dead are asleep, not even aware that today 4 Billion people are on lockdown or what the heck COVID 19 is about - that includes my brother and mother, my two grandfathers and two grandmothers, my aunts and uncles - they are lucky they are unaware because they are dead.
But there will be a day of reckoning - and that is the Day of Judgement.
It would be a sad and gloomy day for a lot of people and a joyful day for some who followed and loved the truth.
So who would be the majority of the unlucky ones?
Again from the Bible....
Revelation 14:9-10 New International Version (NIV)
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
Does this ring a bell???
i hope you realize you backed up what i was saying to you