RonD1120

People who are in the kind of place both Ron and Jay are can never do what you are asking. It is too terrifying for them to even consider. Because they fear that even a tiny chink in their armour could lead to them losing the faith that they hold so dear. They organize their lives around this and they will not risk it crumbling down around them. The foundation of their belief is very shaky, and they know it. No, not terrifying at all. My faith is built upon my personal experience with God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Nothing can change my experience and the revelatory knowledge that came with it. Intellectual Bible study followed later. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

This thread posed the question, can an atheist get into heaven. Now after 473 posts we have reached the point where you are ready to throw down and fight for the right to remain outside. I am convinced. I am not bothered by your conviction. As a Christian I have no personal investment. No Christian does. We share the good news of the Gospel of Christ without obligation, requirement or guilt. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

If you look through this thread I think you'll see it's Jay who castigates and ridicules (just as you do on many occasions). Can't you see Jay's frustration every time he's asked about elements of his teaching that don't quite square up? Can't you see the peace of mind that eludes him? Yep, something isn't right... On the contrary, I see confidence standing on the foundation of Christ and the theological study of scriptural writings. I am just a counselor. He is a true scholar. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

There is so little reason, given the knowledge we have, to believe in the story of Genesis or Noah, that enumerating the evidence is pointless. It is sufficient to merely say that only faith demonstrated by suspension of disbelief could lead anyone to accept these stories as literal truths. But genetic theory does teach us that any mammal species numbering less than a few dozen is doomed. That has been well known for quite some time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population This is interesting. The study suggests that, "damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness." Neuropsychologia. 2017 Jun;100:18-25. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.04.009. Epub 2017 Apr 6. Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalism. Zhong W1, Cristofori I1, Bulbulia J2, Krueger F3, Grafman J4. Author information Abstract Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality. Your best thinking got you and the others to this point. And yet, something is just not right. You come here to debate, castigate, shame and ridicule but satisfaction cannot be found. Agreement among each other, yes. Still peace of mind eludes you. There is that one thing in your life or your past that holds you guilty. You know it is there and you can't find complete relief. You are held captive. Jesus came to set the captives free. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

So what you’re saying is, for you it was easy. God physically manifested to you, otherwise you didn’t believe and still wouldn’t believe. What if you’d been in an accident one day before god spoke to you? You’d be in hell forever. Would that have been fair? Is it fair to everyone who does die without believing that god didn’t treat them the same as you and personally, audibly speak to them and ask them to believe in him? God is not fair, He is just. You have been given the rules or the plan if you will. The choice is yours. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Perhaps he attempted to address the paradox, but he certainly failed to resolve it. It's honestly what made it make sense to me. I don't see the paradox. Seriously. Jay, No one here begrudges your beliefs. Why not take a different tack? The truth is that you read the bible and you also read many scholarly works by theologians who are doing their best to make sense of the bible. Why not simply tell us that those readings resonate with you on a very deep and spiritual level. And that's that. The thing is that you claim evidence and proof and so on. When you are pressed nothing materializes. Why not just say that you have no proof or evidence that would satisfy a secularist and that you were mistaken to make the claim? Then tell us that the truth arena that we play in is different from yours and that you hope us the best. I say this because the more you argue ineffectively the less I believe you have no doubts. This Easter morning I reflect back to 16 Mar 1981 when I was stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I realized that I was lost and dying. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Why don't you try Jesus? You have tried everything else.” I surrendered and ask Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. At that moment I felt the power of the love of God flow over me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. I saw memory visions of every time in my life where I denied Christ, cursed God and ridiculed His word. As each memory came into my foreground perception the voice of the Lord said, “I forgive you.” My life and my mind became transformed. I became a new creature in Christ. I was born again. Two years later, 26 Mar 1983, I said to myself that I had to stop drinking alcohol. I had no control to quit as soon as I consumed the first beer. I humbled myself before the Lord and asked Him for help. The first part of April He transformed my thinking patterns once again. He reprogrammed my mind by rearranging all of my memory bytes. I received a new operating system and I was delivered from the desire to use all mood altering substances. God by the Holy Spirit through Jesus the Christ has sustained me these past thirty-seven and thirty-five years respectively. My only desire is to share the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for your sins. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

How about this? The battle for the soul is in the mind, a Christian concept. If two bodies are joined together with two separate personalities then there are two minds. Each has free will to make choices on their own and be held accountable as individuals. If two bodies are joined together with one mind then the choices are singularly individual. Keeping in mind that sin is mostly attitude not behvior. Are you saying that when separate each embryo has a soul but when joined as a Chimera the souls also join to become one? I am saying count the number of minds and that equals the number of souls. This is just conjecture to some degree on my part. I have counseled people with multi-faceted personalities and some were diagnosed Multiple Personality Disorder. I have never met nor counseled a chimera as far as I know. Wait a sec... are you saying people with MPD have multiple souls? So did they only have one soul up until the traumatic experience that made them disassociate? Or were all those souls lying dormant? You've 'counseled people' but it sounds like you have zero understanding of the disorder. I was referring to minds not personalities. Those Dx w/MPD still have only one mind. It is fragmented. When I was still in the psych field, mid-'90s, MPD was not accepted as a valid Dx by many professionals. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

A) How would you know? B) How would it help you know the answer? You need to redirect your question to JoeWeber. It is his fantasy problem. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

How about this? The battle for the soul is in the mind, a Christian concept. If two bodies are joined together with two separate personalities then there are two minds. Each has free will to make choices on their own and be held accountable as individuals. If two bodies are joined together with one mind then the choices are singularly individual. Keeping in mind that sin is mostly attitude not behvior. Are you saying that when separate each embryo has a soul but when joined as a Chimera the souls also join to become one? I am saying count the number of minds and that equals the number of souls. This is just conjecture to some degree on my part. I have counseled people with multi-faceted personalities and some were diagnosed Multiple Personality Disorder. I have never met nor counseled a chimera as far as I know. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

For me the desire to attend church, regardless of age, is simply the desire to fellowship with those with whom I share like experience. It is similar to the kind of fellowship with other jumpers following a day at the DZ. The experience of salvation in Christ is so overwhelming that it produces a need, want or desire to be with brothers and sisters. For each of us the phenomena of being totally engulfed in the forgiving love, Agape, of God is an eternal Holy Instant. To share that love is wonderful. Those are the true believers. There are also make believers and non-believers that attend church. They have different agendas. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

How about this? The battle for the soul is in the mind, a Christian concept. If two bodies are joined together with two separate personalities then there are two minds. Each has free will to make choices on their own and be held accountable as individuals. If two bodies are joined together with one mind then the choices are singularly individual. Keeping in mind that sin is mostly attitude not behvior. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Most excellent, thanks for sharing. I've made several church demos and they were always a blessing. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

There's a meme running around and it said something about taking her serious with a communist flag on her sleeve. The flag was Puerto Rico. No, it was a Cuban flag. Her father was born there. Snopes Did you hear, about 5.8 million millennials could not attend the marches last Saturday? Planned Parenthood killed them. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Nope. We're saying the same thing. No. You both do not. From your post No. 230: "You weren’t created to be a sinner. You’re a sinner because you choose to sin." Ron claimed, we all are born sinners, means even a newborn is a sinner. I think it's appropriate to just call Christian belief a bunch of weasel words - that's what old people use to do when the end is coming closer, years can be counted on one hand - so: flight forward. If it helps .... why not?? It is my understanding that we are born with a sin nature because of original sin. A child is considered innocent until they reach the age of accountability. That is, when the child can discern two options the tendency is to choose in favor of egocentric reward and not to choose spiritual relationship with God. The latter decision is sin. That's what you posted last autumn. Now your understanding is ...".. child considered innocent until they reach the age of accountability". Man, what will be your next understanding ? Seems, your explanations are quite ... let's call it: adaptive ? Two expressions of the same concept. When the child becomes egocentric he chooses for gratification of self. That is the beginning of sin nature. Much is forgiven the child until he reaches the age of accountability. Then child finds there are adverse consequences to bad choices. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

When Christ was incarnate as Jesus he was a complete, albeit most holy, human. The physical suffering He endured was only the beginning. On the cross He became sin and suffered spiritual death and separation from God, the Father. He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Just goes to show how weird the human mind is. No human can give more than Jesus did at Calvary. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

I totally agree. Truth cannot be argued. Truth is either accepted or denied. Stop changing the subject. We were discussing religion, not Truth. Maybe you are discussing religion. IMO, religion is simply ritualized behavior. I am focusing on truth. I believe that man is composed of a body, a soul and, a spirit. My interest is living in the spirit, as much as one is able, instead of the body. The object is to save one's soul and spend eternity in heaven. To do so requires salvation in Christ by God's grace through faith and not of works or ritualized behavior. A discussion on religion for example would be, which is better a church service lasting 60 minutes on Sunday morning or an open ended church service that lasts as long as the Holy Spirit directs? Or does Buddhism provide a path to eternal life? Another, is it OK for a Muslim to use any type of material for a prayer rug? Does it matter when a Muslim prays and in which direction he faces? Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

I believe they should accept the gift because I believe all communication between the US and Russia is for the common good. I remember how disgusted I was when Obama returned to bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain. That was just rude. We were allies with both countries during WWII. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

I totally agree. Truth cannot be argued. Truth is either accepted or denied. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

No, IMOthat's a false equivalence. FIFY Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Nope. We're saying the same thing. No. You both do not. From your post No. 230: "You weren’t created to be a sinner. You’re a sinner because you choose to sin." Ron claimed, we all are born sinners, means even a newborn is a sinner. I think it's appropriate to just call Christian belief a bunch of weasel words - that's what old people use to do when the end is coming closer, years can be counted on one hand - so: flight forward. If it helps .... why not?? It is my understanding that we are born with a sin nature because of original sin. A child is considered innocent until they reach the age of accountability. That is, when the child can discern two options the tendency is to choose in favor of egocentric reward and not to choose spiritual relationship with God. The latter decision is sin. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

So how come some of them do? I believe they were Christian in name only, similar to what we call RINOs. They never experienced true salvation. Judas Iscariot is the Biblical example of a make believe Christian. It seems evident that you have at least some doubt about your faith. Why else would you persistently engage the non-believers on this forum? I've seen no evidence that you've caused any atheists to reconsider their positions. That leaves only the testing of your own. Nice try but no, I have no doubt regarding my faith. What would make you think you would see evidence in cyberspace? It is said, one plants and one waters but Jesus reaps the harvest. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

Many millions of Christians are now former Christians. Including untold hundreds of thousands of faith leaders. But still I believe you are correct. They were not "persuaded". They looked inside themselves and realized that the immense wonder and mystery of the universe we can observe can not be explained by the lies of the charlatans who created the various scams we call churches. 1 Timothy 4 [ The Great Apostasy ] Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ... The Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning. He said, when the admirers, the sceptics and, the make believers have left the disciples will remain. And, they are Mine. These are signs of the latter days. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

So how come some of them do? I believe they were Christian in name only, similar to what we call RINOs. They never experienced true salvation. Judas Iscariot is the Biblical example of a make believe Christian. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

So wasn't it incredibly patronising of your good friend to say "a person not interested in the concept of heaven, hell or salvation will never respond to intellectual persuasion"? Surely what he meant was "a person believing in the concept of heaven, hell or salvation will never provide intellectual persuasion." That is true. A Christian will not, can not, be persuaded to turn away from truth. The experience of salvation is too powerful, too good and, it reveals too much. Salvation is the most formidable memory one can retain. It is eternal. Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.