Lol on your “Christian only” take

[Ziggy]

well baptists can be calvinist also. Calvinism as a doctrine is about the steps of salvation. Up in the christian debate section, i made quite a few posts about it. The big sticking point for most concerning calvinism is the predestined thing, which is the U in TULIP, unconditional election. God chose who would be saved before He created the universe. So that means a person doesnt have the ability to chose God on their own. Only those God called can be saved.

How do you read this ?
Phl 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Hugs

 

[Lifelong_sinner]

How do you read this ?
Phl 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Hugs

i read it as God is the one who does the work in you for you to do good. You dont have any free will to chose God because no one chooses God of their own free will.
Romans 3:11 “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”
If you believe in God, its not your doing, but His will.

 

[Ziggy]

and this:

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Does God impart this believing in us, or is it an effort on our part?
It's a "must" ...

I know that faith is a gift from God, but does believing have to be the reciprical part?
He gives us faith, but we must believe. Is this, believing an act of our own freewill, or something that is without choice?

Thank you
Hugs

 

[I.O.U]

Would it be love if a child believed he could skate on thin ice
and all i said to him was believe as you will . Then he gets on the ice and breaks through and drowns .
No , that is not love .
If a man knows the way which is right and yet will not try and help the other but lets them end in death
that is not love at all .
SO out of love i must remind all , BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST and You shall have life eternal forever with the KING
But believe not and the end is the second death .
IF we would warn children not to skate on thin ice
Should those who know the right way , just leave others to end up with the second death .
Cause i truly dont see love at all in that .
And thus out of great love i say again , BELIEVE in CHRIST JESUS and come and have eternal life .
THE eternal life that no man can earn nor buy , but THANK GOD for CHRIST the glorious grace of GOD .

There's an flaw in your logic. You wouldn't need to force a child to get off the lake of thin ice per-belief. It can be explained and demonstrated that the ice can break (no believing required)

 

[Ziggy]

There's an flaw in your logic. You wouldn't need to force a child to get off the lake of thin ice per-belief. It can be explained and demonstrated that the ice can break (no believing required)

So only yes and no. no maybe's. Because maybe's have to rely on a belief one way or the other.
Fact versus speculation.
that's pretty cold though, don't you think?

 

[I.O.U]

I'm really trying to wrap my brain around this.
How can one live if they don't believe anything?
I put a coat on before I go outside because I believe it is cold outside.
I take an umbrella because I believe it will rain.

Explain to me HOW someone goes through life with no belief system

We all take a best guess at thing's, but who has the right to make guesses a institution. You use your best guess about the weather and prepare accordingly. But just because you don't get soaked more often than those other people who guessed wrong, doesn't mean you should be mandated as the Saint of the weather.

 

[Ziggy]

So your complaint is about being forced into some kind of belief system whether you agree with that belief or not.
I don't have a problem with that analogy.
There are a lot of things I don't want to be forced into believing either.
But you do have choices in what you want to make your best guess at, no?
You just don't want to be told you have to guess this way or that. You want to make your own choices and guesses.
Yes?

 

[Lifelong_sinner]

There's an flaw in your logic. You wouldn't need to force a child to get off the lake of thin ice per-belief. It can be explained and demonstrated that the ice can break (no believing required)

no one is forcing you to believe in God. But at the same time, God existing can be explained and demonstrated.

 

[Lifelong_sinner]

We all take a best guess at thing's, but who has the right to make guesses a institution. You use your best guess about the weather and prepare accordingly. But just because you don't get soaked more often than those other people who guessed wrong, doesn't mean you should be mandated as the Saint of the weather.

sounds like you’re mad that there are preachers and elders and deacons.

 

[Titus]

sounds like you’re mad that there are preachers and elders and deacons.

Goodnight friend, Now is the day of salvation

 

[I.O.U]

sounds like you’re mad that there are preachers and elders and deacons.

Those back scratchers. No, not anymore.

 

[I.O.U]

no one is forcing you to believe in God. But at the same time, God existing can be explained and demonstrated.

Why would you believe something you know is real?

 

[I.O.U]

So your complaint is about being forced into some kind of belief system whether you agree with that belief or not.
I don't have a problem with that analogy.
There are a lot of things I don't want to be forced into believing either.
But you do have choices in what you want to make your best guess at, no?
You just don't want to be told you have to guess this way or that. You want to make your own choices and guesses.
Yes?

Yes.

 

[Lifelong_sinner]

Why would you believe something you know is real?

thats an odd question to me. I believe in a lot of things that are real. I believe in brakes stop a car, i believe airplanes can fly, and i believe God is real and is sovereign over all. Theres no doubt on any of those 3 things.

 

[I.O.U]

thats an odd question to me. I believe in a lot of things that are real. I believe in brakes stop a car, i believe airplanes can fly, and i believe God is real and is sovereign over all. Theres no doubt on any of those 3 things.

Okay. Break's on a vehicle or the Jet engine of a plane does not function or malfunction any different because you believe. In fact your more likely to ignore checking the break fluid and the airplane company's flight history on the basis that thing's always work out fine with a little faith.

Yeah!

 

[Lifelong_sinner]

Okay. Break's on a vehicle or the Jet engine of a plane does not function or malfunction any different because you believe. In fact your more likely to ignore checking the break fluid and the airplane company's flight history on the basis that thing's always work out fine with a little faith.

Yeah!

exactly. It doesnt matter if you believe or not, God exists. Its not up for debate, what is debatable is what the reason is for not believing. Your love of sin? Or your anger at God for things not working out for you? Theres all kinds of reasons why you dont believe…but i’ve yet to hear a valid reason from any atheist.

 

[I.O.U]

exactly. It doesnt matter if you believe or not, God exists. Its not up for debate, what is debatable is what the reason is for not believing. Your love of sin? Or your anger at God for things not working out for you? Theres all kinds of reasons why you dont believe…but i’ve yet to hear a valid reason from any atheist.

I had to stop forming and maintaining beliefs so that I could live without schizophrenia. This is why I mention at time's that I no longer require anti-psychotic medication (That has been more than two years ago) Neither have I needed to return to the mental health clinic (I also mentioned their reaction to my recovery) Meaning that believing itself eventually leads to the formation of sensory degeneration (Schizophrenia)

 

[Ziggy]

Why would you believe something you know is real?

I get picked on sometimes for using wikipedia so I'll try this instead:

Belief (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › belief
In one way of speaking, the belief just is the fact or proposition represented, or the particular stored token of that fact or proposition; in another way of speaking, the more standard in philosophical discussion, the belief is the state of having such a fact or representation stored.

Kinda like memory on your hard drive.

The Bible states a "fact" . In the beginning God. There is no question it's a statement.
I can believe that statement to be true or false.
Once I declare that that statement is true or false to myself, it then becomes stored in my brains memory under the catagory "Belief" .
This Catagory has a lot of folders filled with different true and false statements.
And it is up to each individual to perform a scan disk for errors that might be found or to add new data as it is made available.

To say that one believes is to affirm that fact to oneself or to another.
If I say, I believe God is. Then what I am technically saying is God is my fact, and this fact is my truth.
And this truth is stored in my human computer made up of heart and mind, and the device which contains them is my body or soul.
My eyes are my monitor, my mouth and ears are the speaker and mic.

I mean if you want to get technical.
Somebody wrote the operating system. And I affirm to myself and to others, that it is God that wrote it.
I don't need to "believe" it, even though it is stored in the "belief" file. I know it, but I communicate it with the term believe.

And humans aren't like plastic and metal that have no feelings and compassion. So our emotions are what drives the communication we are trying to transmit. She sounds happy, he sounds sad, she said it with empathy, he said it with authority.
There is no "tone" that emits from a device that hasn't first been installed by the one who created the system.
But there can be "viruses" downloaded that corrupt the files. These viruses can only come from outside sources.
No operating system was ever created that created it's own virus. Someone or something had to put it there at a later time.

These "viruses" can be doubt, hate, anger, self denial, or even self-destruct.

The question one could ask themselves is: Who am I and how was my operating system created?

That's one advantage humans have over computers, self identity.
I don't even know if Artificial Intelligence is capable of that... yet.
I don't have a file with a folder for that, so it goes in the "I don't know" catagory.
And every human has at least one of them.

(I'm not a techy, I don't write computer programs or build hardware, so all references to these are purely speculative with the understanding or lack of, that's in my files)
Hugs

 

[I.O.U]

I get picked on sometimes for using wikipedia so I'll try this instead:

Belief (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › belief
In one way of speaking, the belief just is the fact or proposition represented, or the particular stored token of that fact or proposition; in another way of speaking, the more standard in philosophical discussion, the belief is the state of having such a fact or representation stored.

Kinda like memory on your hard drive.

The Bible states a "fact" . In the beginning God. There is no question it's a statement.
I can believe that statement to be true or false.
Once I declare that that statement is true or false to myself, it then becomes stored in my brains memory under the catagory "Belief" .
This Catagory has a lot of folders filled with different true and false statements.
And it is up to each individual to perform a scan disk for errors that might be found or to add new data as it is made available.

To say that one believes is to affirm that fact to oneself or to another.
If I say, I believe God is. Then what I am technically saying is God is my fact, and this fact is my truth.
And this truth is stored in my human computer made up of heart and mind, and the device which contains them is my body or soul.
My eyes are my monitor, my mouth and ears are the speaker and mic.

I mean if you want to get technical.
Somebody wrote the operating system. And I affirm to myself and to others, that it is God that wrote it.
I don't need to "believe" it, even though it is stored in the "belief" file. I know it, but I communicate it with the term believe.

And humans aren't like plastic and metal that have no feelings and compassion. So our emotions are what drives the communication we are trying to transmit. She sounds happy, he sounds sad, she said it with empathy, he said it with authority.
There is no "tone" that emits from a device that hasn't first been installed by the one who created the system.
But there can be "viruses" downloaded that corrupt the files. These viruses can only come from outside sources.
No operating system was ever created that created it's own virus. Someone or something had to put it there at a later time.

These "viruses" can be doubt, hate, anger, self denial, or even self-destruct.

The question one could ask themselves is: Who am I and how was my operating system created?

That's one advantage humans have over computers, self identity.
I don't even know if Artificial Intelligence is capable of that... yet.
I don't have a file with a folder for that, so it goes in the "I don't know" catagory.
And every human has at least one of them.

(I'm not a techy, I don't write computer programs or build hardware, so all references to these are purely speculative with the understanding or lack of, that's in my files)
Hugs

That's very interesting, and will take me a while to read through it. I won't say anything about it until I have a better grasp of the concept.

 

[Ziggy]

I had to stop forming and maintaining beliefs so that I could live without schizophrenia. This is why I mention at time's that I no longer require anti-psychotic medication (That has been more than two years ago) Neither have I needed to return to the mental health clinic (I also mentioned their reaction to my recovery) Meaning that believing itself eventually leads to the formation of sensory degeneration (Schizophrenia)

So basically you don't allow your mind to wander. You stay exclusively focused on your 5 senses. Touch, taste, smell, hear and sight.
Would you care to share your experiences with schizophrenia?
I'm reading a website right now that explains the symptoms, but doesn't really have an answer as to the cause.
If I show you the website I'm looking at, could you tell me if it is accurate in your circumstances?
Schizophrenia - Symptoms and causes

LISTEN, I'm not a doctor. I just want to be your friend.
And I want to be able to talk to you without offending you or making you feel uncomfortable.
And I would like to understand how we can have a discussion without animosity.
And I hear what your saying.

Hugs