i have...here it is again.
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see
I have no problem with the analogy unless it's application makes it into something it is not. For that you will have to somehow make it applicable. What is the conclusion or implication. You keep the semantic train chugging but it never gets anywhere. Lets just say I agree So what??
Yes but that only removes the ultimate payment for sin. The second death. I still if you will have a cosmic master that will discipline me in the temporal sence. There are some who even say he will physically kill even a very wayward Christian (I am not saying I agree but his scrutiny of my actions went way up after I was saved) but the ultimate destination is still secure.
why not? what else would set a believer apart from a non believer?
This was in the context of fear. It was not meant to address a larger role. I will provide statistics that show Christians are on the whole better or more concerned with many benevolent actions if you will tell me what difference it would make.
so then there is no reason at all for you to have any fear since you have experienced god 1st hand...
In short I no longer have any fear of what will happen after I die (it is quite remarkably different since I was saved). A verse in the bible says be ruthlessly scurges whom he loves. The same way that a bad parent never disciplines their kids and the kids do not fear them. A good parent is strict and fair but does inspire some level of fear. That alone is a reason to fear. I also provided many verses that suggest quite rightly that fear of God leads to right actions and a humble spirit. I am not going to chunk the bible and my reason and adopt the view of someone hostile to God.
but the understanding of who christ is still being debated...
by what criteria does one determine who christ is if there are many differing ideas about him?
There is not much division over what makes one a Christian. At least within the community of people who do not oppose God or rule his possability out before hand. The debate usually begins after that event or fact. Catholics say 80% faith plus works and 20% works alone. The protestants say 99% faith alone 1% something else. That gives an agregate approx 93%-95% aggreement of being born again as necessary to become a Christian. I do not care what the hostile group says their methods render their verdict meaningless in most cases.
i never said fear is primary...i asserted reality.
getting the bad news of loosing your job is a real thing that one must deal with. it's a reality. the way in which one chooses to deal with that reality is subjective. one can HOPE for a better outcome...by either doing nothing-praying or doing something..looking for a new job.
it's quite simple.
You can beat a dead horse into a pile of goo. For the sake of sanity let's say the fear factor among, reason, explanitory power, personal experience, prophecy, testimony, scientific claims, historical corroberation, and philisophic consistency so what does it have to do with your example. Your point was that it is a false hope based on a spurious conclusion derived from fear and that is false. For the heck of it lets say they are similar (but they aren't) so what???
Are you suggesting the stupid scientific method that even the scientist ignore is the only test for every category of reality. What a narrow boring world we would live in.
The universal consitency of ration intellegablity is assumed and far less than 1% is known. Claiming to know what happened millions of years ago is faith. We argue over cival war battles which happened less than two hundred years ago had witnesses and battle reports. We argue whether there was a Homer or a Shakespear or how many shakespears and the titles of Sonetts. Any untestable or unobservable claim is a guess (maybe a good one but time quickly diminishes that) but they claim it as fact. The same way they claim light speed is always 186,000 mi/sec. How do they know have they measured it everywhere. No, they assume (have faith that it is). I don't really care what they claim I just mind when they have differing standards or claim proof when it is at best a guess. Another would be that life evolved by itself as being true when there is actually a law of biology that says it can't happen and never has. Don't get me started on science.
religion is one method at arriving at a conclusion....the individual believer, or the religious adherent is always right by faith... a fallible criteria...
That is impossible. If two people have contradictory claims of faith concerning absolute truth they both can't be right. Both could be wrong but not both right. I think you just made this up as it does not exist in any religion or philosophy I have ever heard of. Faith does not necessarily equal truth. In fact most faith is wrong.
